TOWARDS  A  LASTING 
SETTLEMENT 

CHARLES  RODEN  BUXTON 
G.LOWES  DICKINSON 
&-  OTHERS 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
FRANK  J.  KLINGBERG 


TOWARDS  A  LAST- 
ING    SETTLEMENT 


TOWARDS  A  LASTING 
SETTLEMENT 


G.   LOWES  DICKINSON,   CHARLES   RODEN    BUXTON, 

H.   SIDEBOTHAM,  J.  A.  HOBSON,  IRENE    COOPER 

WILLIS,  A.  MAUDE  ROYDEN,  H.  N.  BRAILSFORD, 

PHILIP  SNOWDEN,  M.P.,  AND  VERNON  LEE 


EDITED  BY 

CHARLES   RODEN   BUXTON 


L'avenir  est  a  qiii  le  fait 


NEW    YORK 

THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 
1916 


(All  rights  reserved) 


College 
Library 


PREFACE 

THE  writers  of  this  book  are  united  in  one  pre- 
dominant aim  :  that  of  securing  that  a  world- 
catastrophe  such  as  the  present  shall  never  recur. 
We  discuss  neither  the  responsibility  for  the  war 
nor  the  conduct  of  it.  Our  main  concern  is  with 
the  broad  problems  which  will  inevitably  arise 
for  discussion  both  at  the  settlement  of  the  war 
and  for  long  afterwards.  These  are  the  problems 
of  nationality  and  territorial  rearrangement,  of  the 
revision  of  maritime  law,  of  economic  opportunities 
in  the  colonial  world,  and,  above  all,  of  a  real 
guarantee  against  war,  based  on  general  inter- 
national co-operation. 

While  offering  no  final  solution,  we  believe  that 
there  exists,  however  little  it  may  as  yet  be  defined, 
a  common  European  policy  which  would  be  accept- 
able to  reasonable  men  in  all  countries,  if  only 
the  present  atmosphere  of  panic  and  prejudice 
could  be  dissipated.  Already  the  outline  of  such  a 
policy  is  discernible  behind  the  thick  veil  of  half 
a  dozen  censorships,  each  striving  to  suppress  every 
sign  of  reason  and  moderation  among  the  people 
it  controls.  Our  book  will  help,  we  believe,  to 
make  the  outline  clearer. 


6  PREFACE 

We  deal,  further,  with  the  reasons  why  the  new 
international  system,  if  it  is  to  provide  security 
for  the  peace  and  progress  of  the  world,  must  be 
founded  upon  the  consent,  not  merely  of  the 
governments  but  of  the  peoples.  We  touch  upon 
some  deeper  questions  which  it  is  impossible  to 
ignore  in  considering  the  foundations  of  permanent 
peace — the  relation  of  war,  for  example,  to  self- 
government  and  to  the  interests  of  womanhood. 

We  do  not  profess  to  treat  all  these  vast 
problems  exhaustively.  Our  aim  is  rather  to  set 
people  thinking  upon  them,  and1  so  to  assist  in 
building  up  a  public  opinion  capable  of  appre- 
ciating and  solving  them. 

It  is  natural  that  there  should  be  many  diver- 
gences of  opinion  among  the  writers  of  a  book 
covering  so  wide  a  range  of  subjects.  We  have 
made  no  attempt  to  impress  upon  our  book  an 
artificial  uniformity.  Each  contributor  is  respon- 
sible only  for  the  opinions  which  he  or  she 
expresses. 

C.    R.    B. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  BASIS  OF  PERMANENT  PEACE        .  .        -9 

By  G.  Lowes  Dickinson 

NATIONALITY .37 

By  Charles  Roden  Buxton 

THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS 61 

By  H.  Sidebotham 

THE  OPEN  DOOR 85 

By  J.  A.  Hobson 

THE  PARALLEL  OF  THE  GREAT  FRENCH  WAR       .        .  in 
By  Irene  Cooper  Willis 

WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT    .        .        .        .131 
By  A.  Maude  Royden 

THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  PEACE       .        .        .        .        -147 
By  H.  N.  Brailsford 

DEMOCRACY  AND  PUBLICITY  IN  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS        .  177 
By  Philip  Snowden,  M.P. 

THE     DEMOCRATIC     PRINCIPLE    AND    INTERNATIONAL 

RELATIONS      .         .        ,         .         .         •*'.-•  201 
By  Vernon  Lee 


THE 

BASIS  OF 
PERMANENT 
PEACE 


THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

By   G.    LOWES   DICKINSON 

WHEN  the  war  burst  upon  the  world,  the  effect 
upon  ordinary  people  who  had  not  followed  the 
course  of  foreign  affairs  was,  first,  a  shock  of 
incredulity,  then  a  feeling  "  Never  again  !  This 
must  be  the  war  to  end  war."  As  the  war  has 
proceeded  this  feeling  has  become  submerged.  The 
men  are  fighting,  the  women  are  nursing,  all  are 
preoccupied  with  the  actual  events  of  the  cam- 
paigns, the  hope  of  victory  or  the  fear  of  defeat. 
In  the  course  of  the  waging  of  the  war  the  purpose 
of  it  is  in  danger  of  being  forgotten.  But  that 
purpose,  nevertheless,  lies  deep  in  the  hearts  of 
the  peoples  and  animates  some,  at  least,  and  the 
best,  of  their  rulers.  The  nations  are  fighting  to 
secure  a  durable  peace.  Those  at  the  front  have 
not  the  opportunity  to  consider  the  conditions  of 
such  a  peace.  All  the  more,  then,  is  it  the  business 
of  those  at  home  to  do  so.  If  they  neglect  it,  they 
are  betraying  the  men  who  are  risking  and  giving 
their  lives. 

Now,  though  much  has  been  written  and  said 
about  the  war  and  the  peace,  very  little  of  it  is 
helpful  to  this  main  purpose.  In  all  nations  the 
object  has  been  to  throw  the  blame  for  the  war 


12     THE  BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

upon  the  enemy,  and  to  conclude  that  all  that 
is  necessary  is  to  defeat  or  to  crush  him.  On 
this  line  of  approach  there  is  no  hope  of  securing 
a  durable  peace.  The  causes  of  war  lie  deeper  than 
the  immediate  occasions  of  this  war.  And  a 
peace  which  should  merely  register  the  defeat  of 
one  or  other  of  the  groups  of  Powers,  while  leaving 
unchanged  the  system,  the  passions,  and  the  ideas 
that  govern  international. politics,  would  be  merely, 
as  every  previous  peace  has  been,  a  truce  before 
the  next  war.  I  propose,  then,  in  this  chapter, 
to  discuss,  not  the  ten  days  of  diplomacy  that 
immediately  preceded  this  war,  but  the  general 
state  of  things  that  makes  war  continually  imminent. 
For  it  is  that  state  of  things  that  we  must  change, 
if  we  can,  to  ensure  a  durable  peace. 

For  centuries  past  the  States  of  Europe  have 
been  armed  against  one  another,  and  commonly 
grouped  in  hostile  alliances.  Imputed  aggression 
on  the  one  side,  fear  and  suspicion  on  the  other, 
have  been  the  motives  of  international  politics  ; 
and  they  have  worked  inevitably  for  war.  In  such 
a  state  of  affairs,  beliefs  and  suspicions  may  be 
more  important  than  real  intentions.  For  inten- 
tions can  never  be  certainly  known,  since  it  is  the 
tradition  of  diplomacy  to  conceal  them  ;  and  though 
every  nation  asserts  the  honesty  of  its  own  repre- 
sentatives, none  credits  that  of  the  representatives 
of  its  rivals.  The  fear  of  war  may  thus  produce 
war,  even  though  there  be  no  other  cause.  That 
is  the  first  point  upon  which  I  wish  to  dwell. 

I  will  illustrate  it  from  the  position  in  Europe 
during  the  ten  years  preceding  this  war.  During 
that  period  the  States  were  grouped  in  two  hostile 


THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE      13 

combinations  :  the  Triple  Alliance  of  Germany, 
Austria,  and  Italy  on  the  one  hand  ;  the  Triple 
Entente  of  England,  France,  and  Russia  on  the 
other.  Between  these  groups  was  the  tension  of 
suspicion  and  fear.  Genuine  attempts  were  made 
from  time  to  time  to  relax  it.  They  failed,  because 
of  the  mutual  mistrust.  That  the  Powers  of  the 
Triple  Entente  were  suspicious  of  Germany  does 
not  need  demonstration  to  Englishmen.  But 
equally  the  German  Powers  were  suspicious  of 
the  Triple  Entente.  The  English  reader  may  be 
inclined  to  dispute  this.  He  is  of  opinion,  not  only 
that  the  Entente  had  nothing  but  defence  in  view, 
but  that  the  Germans  knew  and  believed  this. 
On  this  latter  point  I  believe  he  is  mistaken. 
The  Germans,  there  is  every  reason  to  suppose, 
believed  that  the  Entente  was  a  hostile  and  aggres- 
sive combination  directed  against  them.  The  fact 
that  they  say  so  will  probably  not  weigh  with 
the  English  reader.  But  perhaps  he  may  be  willing 
to  listen  to  the  considered  opinions  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Power  that  has  suffered  most 
cruelly  at  the  hands  of  the  Germans.  There  have 
been  published  recently  l  a  series  of  dispatches 
from  the  Belgian  representatives  at  Berlin,  Paris, 
and  London  during  the  years  1907-14.  In  these 
dispatches  the  view  I  have  attributed  to  the 
Germans  constantly  occurs — that  the  Entente  is 
an  aggressive  combination  directed  against  Ger- 
many and  that  it  is  breaking  up  the  peace  of 
the  world.  Thus,  for  example,  Baron  Greindl, 
Belgian  representative  at  Berlin,  writes  on  May  30, 
1908  :— 

1  In  the  tforddcutsekc  AHgentcine 


14     THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

"  Call  it  an  Alliance,  Entente,  or  what  you  will, 
the  grouping  of  the  Powers  arranged  by  the 
personal  intervention  of  the  King  of  England  exists, 
and  if  it  is  not  a  direct  and  immediate  threat  of  war 
against  Germany  (it  would  be  too  much  to  say  that 
it  was  that)  it  constitutes,  none  the  less,  a  diminution 
of  her  security.  The  necessary  pacifist  declarations, 
which  no  doubt  will  be  repeated  at  Reval,  signify 
very  little,  emanating  as  they  do  from  three  Powers 
which,  like  Russia  and  England,  have  just  carried 
through  with  success,  without  any  motive  except 
the  desire  for  aggrandizement,  and  without  even 
a  plausible  pretext,  wars  of  conquest  in  Manchuria 
and  the  Transvaal,  or  which,  like  France,  are 
proceeding  at  this  moment  to  the  conquest  of 
Morocco,  in  contempt  of  solemn  promises,  and 
without  any  title  except  the  cession  of  British  rights 
which  never  existed.  The  Triple  Alliance  has 
guaranteed  for  thirty  years  the  peace  of  the  world, 
because  it  was  directed  by  Germany,  who  was 
satisfied  with  the  political  division  of  Europe.  The 
new  grouping  menaces  the  peace,  because  it  is  com- 
posed of  Powers  who  aspire  to  a  revision  of  the 
status  quo,  to  such  a  degree  that,  to  realize  this 
desire,  they  have  silenced  secular  hatreds." 

Baron  Greindl,  it  may  be  said,  had  been  impreg- 
nated with  the  German  view.  Very  likely.  But 
that  view  is  constantly  recurring  in  the  dispatches, 
not  only  of  his  successor  at  Berlin,  but  of  his 
colleagues  at  London  and  Paris.  Now,  England, 
now  France,  now  Russia,  is  represented  as  the 
danger  to  peace  ;  never  Germany.  The  Belgian 
ministers,  it  will  be  urged,  were  mistaken.  They 


THE  BASIS   OF  PERMANENT  PEACE      15 

may  have  been.  But  that  is  not  my  present  point. 
I  do  not  cite  the  dispatches  as  evidence  of  fact.  I 
cite  them  as  evidence  of  opinion.  And  I  argue 
that,  if  the  Triple  Entente  could  be,  and  in  fact  was, 
thus  regarded  by  neutral  outsiders,  it  must  a  fortiori 
have  been  so  regarded  by  Germans.  We  may  take 
it,  then,  to  be  established  that  the  grouping  of 
the  Powers  produced,  on  both  sides,  a  state  of 
suspicion  and  fear.  Whether  on  one  side  or  on 
the  other,  or  it  may  be  on  both,  there  were,  at 
one  time  or  another,  actual  aggressive  intentions, 
I  do  not  here  discuss.  I  do  not  believe  that  we 
definitely  know,  though  of  course  we  may  conjec- 
ture and  infer.1  But  even  though  there  never  had 
been  such  intentions  on  either  side,  the  belief  in 
them  was  enough  to  produce  a  situation  pregnant 
with  war.  The  war  may  have  been  a  war  of 
nothing  but  mutual  fear.  And  this  possibility  is 
not  ruled  out  because,  at  the  last  moment,  it  was 
Germany  that  made  war  inevitable.  For  it  may 
have  been,  and,  as  I  believe,  was,  precisely  the 
conviction  of  Germany  that  war  was  in  any  case 
inevitable  that  finally  determined  her  to  plunge  into 
it.  I  offer  no  excuse  for  her  action.  But  I  think  it 
has  been  too  much  dwelt  upon,  to  the  exclusion  of 
all  that  lies  behind  it.  When  there  is  such  tension 
as  we  have  described  in  the  European  situation, 
some  Power  or  other  will  always  be  tempted  to 
precipitate  the  catastrophe,  and  some  Power  or 
other  will  always  succumb  to  the  temptation.  I 

1  To  avoid  unnecessary  misconception  I  will  say  that  it  is 
not  my  belief  that  British  policy  has  been  aggressive  during 
the  period  under  consideration. 


16     THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

ask  the  reader  most  earnestly  to  consider  whether 
this  is  not  true  ;  and  for  the  purpose,  to  concen- 
trate his  mind,  not  upon  the  ten  days  of  nego- 
tiation, but  upon  the  whole  situation  out  of  which 
that  confused  and  agonized  correspondence  pro- 
ceeded. So  only  can  he  get  a  true  perspective  from 
which  to  view  the  possibilities  of  future  peace. 
And  observe,  further,  the  situation  made  a  mutual 
understanding,  I  will  not  say  impossible,  but  very 
difficult.  For  there  can  be  no  understanding  where 
there  is  no  confidence.  And  it  is  precisely  con- 
fidence that  is  lacking  among  the  representatives 
of  the  States  of  Europe.  They  always  believe,  one 
might  say  it  is  their  duty  to  believe,  that  the  others 
are  trying  to  overreach  them.  Let  me  illustrate 
this  from  the  efforts  made  in  1912  towards  a 
rapprochement  between  Germany  and  England. 
We  have  now  two  accounts  of  these  negotiations, 
the  German  and  the  English  ;  and  though  these 
accounts  do  not  altogether  agree,  the  main  facts 
are  plain.  The  Chancellor  (this  is  the  German 
account),  believing  that  Germany  was  threatened 
by  aggression  from  France  and  Russia,  was 
anxious  to  secure  the  neutrality  of  England 
in  case  of  such  an  attack.  He  proposed, 
therefore,  that  England  should  pledge  herself 
first  to  absolute  neutrality  ;  then,  when  this 
was  rejected,  to  neutrality  if  war  were  "  forced 
upon  "  Germany.  Sir  Edward  Grey  did,  in  fact,  in- 
tend to  remain  neutral  in  such  a  contingency.  But, 
as  he  stated,  he  objected  to  the  pledge  required  ; 
first,  on  the  ground  that  it  would  be  misunderstood 
by  France  and  Russia  ;  but  secondly,  because  of 


THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE      17 

the  impossibility  of  determining1,  if  war  should  break 
out,  who  was  the  aggressor.  Germany  might  push 
Austria  into  war  with  Russia,  then  come  in  her- 
self, under  her  agreement  with  her  ally,  and  yet 
maintain  that  the  war  had  been  "  forced  upon  " 
her,  and  that  England  was  bound  to  neutrality. 
On  these  grounds  Sir  Edward  rejected  the  German 
proposal.  But  he  made  a  counter  one.  He  was 
ready  to  pledge  England  "  neither  to  make  nor 
to  join  in  any  unprovoked  attack  "  upon  Germany. 
But  now  it  was  the  Chancellor's  turn  to  be  sus- 
picious. How  was  it  to  be  known  whether  an 
attack  were  "provoked"  or  "unprovoked"? 
Russia,  let  us  suppose,  makes  war  upon  Austria, 
but  in  such  a  way  that  Austria  can  be  plausibly 
represented  as  the  aggressor.  Germany  and  France 
are  drawn  in.  And  what  is  the  worth  of  the 
British  guarantee?  England  will  say  that  the 
German  Powers  were  the  aggressors,  and  side 
with  her  allies.  Some  such  thoughts,  we  may  be 
sure,  passed  through  the  mind  of  the  Chancellor. 
German  suspicions  were  the  counterpart  of  British, 
and  appeared  to  Germans  as  much  justified  by 
the  situation.  And  once  more,  the  point  is, 
not  whether  either  Power,  or  which,  was  plotting 
duplicity.  The  point  is,  that  duplicity  was 
bound  to  be  suspected  on  both  sides.  If 
the  relations  between  the  States  of  Europe  were 
open,  honest,  and  frank,  such  situations  could 
not  occur.  As  things  are,  they  must  occur,  and 
they  will  continue  to  occur  so  long  as  Europe 
continues  to  be  organized  as  it  is.  The  nations  are 
bled  to  death  because  they  or  their  statesmen  cannot 

2 


18     THE  BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

trust  one  another.  There  is  the  bottom  fact.  And 
it  is  more  important  to  recognize  this  fact  than 
to  spend  our  time  in  looking  for  the  criminal 
nation.  Such  inquiries  can  seldom  be  impartial, 
and  they  divert  our  attention  from  the  main  point. 
Wars  proceed  from  the  armed  peace.  No  one 
may  want  war,  and  yet  war  may  come.  So  long 
as  there  is  a  system  of  States,  armed  one 
against  the  other,  so  long  as  the  relations 
of  these  States  are  governed  by  suspicion 
and  fear,  so  long  as  there  is  no  machinery, 
recognized  and  generally  used,  for  dealing  with 
disputes  otherwise  than  by  war,  so  long  will  war 
break  out,  even  though  neither  statesmen  nor  people 
desire  or  choose  it. 

My  first  point,  then,  is  that  the  system  of  armed 
States  which  I  have  described  is  enough  of 
itself  to  produce  war,  even  though  there  were  no 
other  cause  than  their  mutual  fear  and  suspicion. 
And  if  this  be  true,  if  there  be  only  some  measure 
of  truth  in  it,  then  one  of  the  conditions  of  a 
durable  peace  is  the  reorganization  of  Europe  on 
a  new  principle.  How  that  reorganization  might 
be  achieved  is  discussed  in  a  later  chapter,  and 
to  that  I  refer  the  reader. 

But  it  will,  of  course,  be  alleged,  and  with 
truth,  that  there  are  other  and  deeper  causes  of 
war.  Let  us,  then,  consider  some  of  these. 

It  is  often  said,1  of  wars,  and  it  is  sometimes 
true,  that  they  are  wars  for  freedom  against  op- 
pression. What  does  this  mean?  It  means  that 
one  of  those  groups  which  we  call  nations 
desires  to  conduct  its  own  affairs  without 


THE  BASIS   OF   PERMANENT  PEACE     19 

interference,  and  that  some  other  group  desires 
to  coerce  it.  This  fact  of  belonging  to  such  a 
group,  with  the  counter  fact  of  not  belonging,  and 
not  wishing  to  belong,  to  another  such  group,  is  a 
bottom  fact  of  the  contemporary  wprld.  Let  us 
try  to  understand  its  character  and  limitations. 

In  time  of  peace,  in  most  countries,  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  nation,  or  State,  is  latent.  Ger- 
mans, it  is  true,  have  been  carefully  trained'  to 
regard  all  their  activities  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  State.  They  are  told  to  study  for  the  State, 
to  invent  for  the  State,  to  manufacture  for  the 
State,  to  trade  for  the  State.  Whether  really 
they  do  so  or  no  I  do  not  presume  to  judge. 
But  elsewhere,  the  life  of  men  passes  without 
much  direct  reference  to  the  State.  What- 
ever objects  men  pursue,  be  they  low  or 
high,  they  pursue  for  the  sake  of  those 
objects.  If  they  are  merchants  or  manufacturers, 
they  want  to  maintain  and  develop  their  business. 
If  they  are  men  of  science,  they  want  to  discover 
and  to  apply  their  discoveries.  If  they  are  artists, 
they  want  to  create.  If  they  are  teachers,  they 
want  to  teach.  If  they  are  preachers,  they  want 
to  improve  morals  and  religion.  If  they  are  phil- 
anthropists or  social  reformers,  they  want  to  make 
life  better,  juster,  and  happier.  In  all  these 
activities,  patriotism  is  seldom  a  direct  motive,  nor 
are  they  at  all  necessarily  confined  to  the  people  of 
one's  own  State.  Trade,  by  its  nature,  is  cos- 
mopolitan, whatever  barriers  States  may  throw 
across  its  paths.  So  is  science.  So,  above  all, 
is  religion,  if  it  be  true  religion.  No  Christian,  at 


20     THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

least,  in  time  of  peace,  would  maintain  that  God  is 
the  God  of  the  Englishman  or  the  German  but  not 
of  any  other  nationality.  Thus,  in  the  normal  course 
of  life,  the  idea  of  the  State  is  not,  for  the  ordinary 
man,  a  motive  of  action.  But  let  his  State  be 
threatened,  or  seem  to  be  threatened,  by  another  ; 
let  it  be,  as  he  thinks,  insulted  ;  let  any  kind  of 
aggression  be  suggested  upon  its  independence  or 
its  honour,  and  suddenly  there  flames  up  in  him  a 
passion  which,  perhaps,  he  never  before  knew  was 
there.  This  passion  is  the  basis  of  patriotism. 
According  to  the  whole  character,  training,  and  ex- 
perience of  a  man,  it  may  assume  any  form,  high  or 
low.  It  may  find  vent  in  the  basest  jingoism,  or  in 
the  noblest  devotion.  Good  or  evil,  or  mingled  of 
both,  it  is  a  tremendous  fact.  And  it  is  one  of 
the  facts  that  lie  behind  and  make  possible  war 
in  the  modern  world. 

But  does  it  produce  war?  Do  men  go  to  war 
because  they  are  patriotic?  Or  does  patriotism 
flame  up  because  they  are  threatened  by  war?  To 
judge  by  the  declarations  of  men,  the  former  never 
occurs,  the  latter  always.  Every  war  is  a  war  of 
defence  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation  waging  it.  It 
may  not  be  so  in  the  eyes  of  statesmen.  Statesmen 
may  utilize  patriotism  to  carry  out  aggression  ; 
so,  at  least,  every  nation  is  ready  to  believe  of 
the  statesmen  of  other  nations,  and  even,  on  occa- 
sion, of  its  own.  But  few  are  ready  to  admit  that 
patriotism  of  itself  would  prompt  a  war  of 
aggression  or  conquest.  We  must,  however,  probe 
more  deeply  behind  what  we  say  or  consciously 
think,  to  what  our  passions  really  urge.  The 


THE  BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE      21 

lowest  form  of  patriotism,  and1  its  commonest 
form,  is  but  a  larger  egotism.  Men  who  are 
insignificant  as  individuals  acquire  a  sense  of 
extended  life  by  belonging  to  a  powerful  nation. 
They  feel  a  pride  in  thinking  of  the  number  of  the 
population  of  their  nation,  the  number  of  square 
miles  of  their  Empire,  the  number  of  "  black' " 
men  they  vicariously  govern.  They  do  enjoy, 
in  that  gross  way,  the  sense  of  power.  And 
though  they  might  not  avow  their  support  of  a 
war  aimed  at  domination,  they  will  secretly  or 
openly  enjoy  the  fruits  of  it.  If  the  reader  js 
inclined  to  question  this,  I  would  ask  him  to 
consider  what  his  real  feelings  were  when  he  heard 
of  the  conquest  of  South- West  Africa,  and  what 
he  believes  to  have  been  the  feeling's  of  most  of 
his  fellow-countrymen.  The  English  insist  in 
this  war,  and  genuinely  believe,  that  they  are 
fighting  against  German,  not  for  English  domina- 
tion. But  how  do  they  feel  when,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  they  acquire  territory?  They  did  not  go  to 
war  for  it.  No  !  But  they  are  very  glad  to 
have  it  1 

There  is,  then,  a  side  of  patriotism,  as  it  is 
felt  by  modern  nations,  which  supports,  if  it 
does  not  prompt,  wars  of  aggression.  But 
such  wars  are  the  necessary  presupposition  of 
wars  of  freedom.  Both  kinds  of  war  spring  from 
the  same  root,  the  feeling  of  belonging  to  a  group. 
As  a  feeling  for  our  own  group  it  prompts  wars 
of  defence.  As  a  feeling  against  other  groups 
it  winks  at  wars  of  aggression.  Yet,  in  either 
case,  though  it  be  a  condition,  it  is  not  the  maker 


22      THE   BASIS   OF  PERMANENT   PEACE 

of  wars.  For  it  does  not  act  unless  it  is  evoked. 
And  what  evokes  it  are  particular  situations, 
the  handling  of  them  by  diplomacy,  and  the 
appeals  made  by  statesmen,  journalists,  and 
publicists.  There  is,  indeed,  one  region  in 
modern  Europe  where  a  long  course  of  oppres- 
sion has  driven  the  whole  mass  of  the  people 
into  wars  they  themselves  originate  and  wage. 
But  the  conditions  of  the  Balkan  peninsula  are 
altogether  exceptional.  And  though  it  was  trouble 
there  that  unchained  the  present  war,  the  war  was 
not,  in  its  origin,  for  the  other  States  concerned, 
a  war  of  peoples.  It  was  a  war  of  diplomatists, 
soldiers,  journalists.  But  behind  these  there  rallied, 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  the  passion  of  patriotism. 
We  must,  then,  admit  that  passion  to  be  a  con- 
dition of  war  ;  but  we  cannot  admit  it  to  be  a 
necessary  cause.  For,  we  may  urge,  let  the  peoples 
be  enlightened,  let  them  be  led  instead  of  misled, 
let  them  be  taught  the  causes  and  the  conse- 
quences of  wars,  and  they  would  never  consent 
to  make  wars  of  aggression,  and  therefore  would 
not  need  to  wage  wars  of  defence.  The  instruction 
of  public  opinion  and,  as  a  consequence  of  that 
instruction,  its  growing  control  over  international 
politics,  would  seem  to  be  the  remedy  here.  And 
that  point,  too,  it  is  the  object  of  this  book  to 
discuss  and  urge. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  tolerating  wars  of  aggression 
that  the  baser  forms  of  patriotism  threaten  the 
peace.  It  is  in  the  refusal  to  entertain  the 
idea  of  give  and  take,  of  reasonable  arrange- 
ments, and  peaceable  settlements  between  nations. 


THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE      23 

To  the  Jingo  the  bare  idea  of  a  concession 
to  another  nation  is  apt  to  present  itself  im- 
mediately as  a  humiliation.  Between  himself 
and  the  individual  members  of  another  State 
he  can  recognize  all  sorts  of  relations,  moral, 
intellectual,  and  spiritual.  But  between  his  nation, 
acting  as  a  whole,  and  that  other  he  recognizes 
no  relation  but  that  of  force. 

A  recent  illustration  will  make  this  plain.  Some 
months  ago  the  head-master  of  Eton,  discussing 
international  relations,  observed  that,  if  these  are 
ever  to  be  improved,  it  must  be  by  the  road  of 
mutual  concessions.  Taking  as  an  example  a  point 
that  is  sometimes  mooted,  the  internationalization 
of  certain  waterways,  he  argued  that  if  we  desired 
that  regime;  to  be  extended  elsewhere,  say  to  the 
Kiel  Canal,  we  must  be  prepared  to  extend  it, 
say,  to  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar.  The  advisability 
or  the  practicability  of  such  a  policy  is  no  more  part 
of  my  present  argument  than  it  was,  if  I  under- 
stood him  rightly,  of  Dr.  Lyttelton's.  But  observe 
the  effect  !  From  all  the  press  there  went  up 
a  universal  cry  :  "  What  !  Give  up  something  ! 
We  give  up  something  !  WE  !  "  Journals  once 
pacifist  rivalled  their  Jingo  contemporaries  in 
astonishment,  indignation,  and  contempt.  And  The 
Times,  dismissing  the  head-master  with  a  vale- 
dictory article  of  reproof  and  forgiveness,  warned 
him  that,  though  it  may  be  appropriate  for  the 
head  of  a  great  public  school  to  talk  "  in  the 
abstract  "  of  peace,  comity,  and  justice,  he  must 
never  venture  to  apply  any  of  these  conceptions  to 
the  concrete  facts  of  the  British  Empire.  Now,  this 


24     THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

spirit  is  simply  a  manifestation  of  corporate 
egotism.  It  is  the  brute,  unreasoning  reaction 
of  one  Being  against  another,  and!  has  no  moral 
quality  at  all,  still  less  a  good  one.  It  is  mere 
instinctive  feeling,  as  independent  even  of  intelli- 
gent calculation  of  self-interest  as  it  is  of  any 
higher  sentiments.  And  so  long  as  that  feeling  is 
the  main  motive  of  those  who  instruct  us  in  politics, 
and  while  these  can  count  upon  an  instant  and  un- 
reflective  response  in  public  opinion,  there  can 
be  little  hope  of  any  change  for  the  better  in 
the  relations  of  States.  It  is  not  enough,  even  if  it 
be  true,  that  we  have  abandoned  wars  for  domin- 
ation. We  have  to  go  farther.  We  have  to  enter 
with  other  States  into  permanent  agreements  for 
the  purpose  of  guaranteeing  peace.  And,  to  do 
so,  we  have  to  make,  not  merely  to  take,  con- 
cessions. The  point  in  which  this  will  come  home 
to  us  is  the  point  of  the  "  freedom  of  the  seas." 
I  do  not  here  attempt  to  elucidate  that  ambiguous 
phrase,  nor  to  discuss  the  difficult  and  vital  ques- 
tions which  it  covers  up.  But  I  do  urge  upon 
the  reader  that  the  question  is  one  for  discussion 
and  negotiation,  not  for  indignant  and  peremptory 
reprobation.  And,  in  saying  this,  I  have  behind  me 
the  authority  of  Sir  Edward  Grey.  In  his  letter 
published  in  the  press  on  August  26th,  while  re- 
jecting, as  of  course,  a  certain  German  view  of 
what  would  constitute  the  "  freedom  of  the  seas," 
he  adds  : — 

"  Freedom  of  the  seas  may  be  a  very  reasonable 
subject  for  discussion,  definition,  and  agreement 
between  nations  after  this  war  ;  but  not  by  itself 


THE   BASIS    OF   PERMANENT   PEACE      25 

alone,  not  while  there  is  no  freedom  and  no  security 
against  war  and  German  methods  of  war  on  land. 
If  there  are  to  be  guarantees  against  future  war, 
let  them  be  equal,  comprehensive,  and  effective 
guarantees,  that  bind  Germany  as  well  as  other 
nations,  including  ourselves." 

These  remarks  of  Sir  Edward  Grey  are  of  the 
utmost  importance.  They  show,  what  is  evident 
from  other  sources,  to  any  one  [who  knows  and 
reflects,  that  the  question  of  the  "  freedom  of  the 
seas  "  will  be  a  vital  one  at  the  peace  settlement. 
What  is  going  to  be  the  British  attitude?  Is  it 
to  be  corporate  egotism,  self-sufficiency,  and  pride? 
Or  is  it  to  be  a  reasoned  consideration  at  once  of 
our  own  vital  interests,  and  of  the  equally  vital 
needs  of  that  society  of  the  nations  in  which  we, 
too,  are  included? 

I  have  taken  a  concrete  example  to  bring  home 
my  point.  But  the  example  must  not  be  allowed 
to  divert  the  reader  from  the  point  itself.  What 
I  am  urging  is  that  the  possibility  of  war 
depends  at  bottom  on  the  existence  in  individual 
men  and  women  of  the  habit  of  conceiving  and 
feeling  their  State  as  independent  of  legal,  moral, 
and  cultural  obligations  to  other  States  ;  of  re- 
senting, therefore,  all  attempts  to  develop  suoh 
obligations  ;  and  thus  regarding  it  as  natural, 
inevitable,  and  right  that  disputes  between  States 
should  be  settled  by  war.  Now,  this  attitude  of 
ordinary  men  and  women  is  the  greatest  obstacle 
to  peace.  For  every  attempt  to  guarantee  peace 
implies  a  willingness  on  the  part  of  the 


26      THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

nations  to  submit  their  national  causes,  first,  to 
the  rules  of  a  common  and  recognized  morality 
and  law  ;  secondly,  to  formal  institutions  for  the 
application  and  enforcement  of  those  rules.  This 
is  true  of  every  conceivable  scheme,  from  the 
loosest  and  freest  league  to  a  complete  system  of 
international  government.  There  need  be,  and 
should  be,  nothing  in  any  such  schemes  incompat- 
ible with  the  true  interests  of  nationality,  nor  with 
the  genuine  and  desirable  autonomy  of  States. 
Internationalism  does  not  attack  the  feeling  "  We 
belong  to  ourselves."  It  attacks  only  its  perversion, 
"  We  do  not  belong  to  you."  And  this  point  goes 
very  deep.  The  future  of  civilization  after  this  war 
will  depend  upon  the  decision  of  the  question 
whether  it  is  their  independence  or  their  inter- 
dependence that  the  nations  will  stress.  The 
former  course  leads  to  a  series  of  wars,  the  latter 
to  peace.  The  issue  is  even  now  joined.  In  the 
passion  of  war  there  are  those  who  urge,  and 
apparently  with  conviction,  that  national  excellence 
and  security  lie  in  the  completest  possible  isola- 
tion ;  in  excluding  foreigners  and  foreign  trade  ; 
in  exaggerating  and  perpetuating  national  differ- 
ences and  national  antagonisms  ;  in  fostering,  as 
the  chief  good,  national  egotism.  That  way  lies 
the  ruin  of  Western  civilization.  For  everything 
that  makes  for  civilization  is  international.  The 
nations  of  the  West  are  far  more  alike  than  they 
are  unlike,  and  their  points  of  likeness  are  much 
more  important  than  their  points  of  unlikeness. 
Not  only  materially  but  spiritually  every  nation 
is  poorer  by  breach  of  contact  with  any  other.  The 


THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE      27 

sole  point  in  which  the  nations  are  independent 
is  that  of  government.  That  they  should  retain 
their  political  autonomy  is  desirable,  so  long  as 
they  wish  to  retain  it.  And  to  attempt  to  bring 
one  of  them  by  force  'under  the  government  of 
another  is  a  crime,  as  well  as  a  folly.  But  for 
the  growing  life  of  nations,  what  they  need  is 
contacts.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  avoid  them.  The 
ideal  of  independence,  spiritual,  moral,  intellectual, 
or  economic,  is  as  impracticable  as  it  is  undesirable. 
But  even  a  partial  movement  in  that  direction 
may  do  much  harm.  For  it  must  increase  mis- 
understandings and  points  of  friction,  and  so  lead 
to  further  wars.  The  cause  of  peace  is  the  cause 
of  internationalism  ;  the  cause  of  internationalism 
is  the  cause  of  civilization  ;  and  the  enemy  of 
all  these  is  "  corporate  egotism." 

I  will  not  further  labour  this  point.  My  readers 
may  agree  or  disagree  ;  I  can  only  state  the 
issue.  But  some,  even  of  those  who  agree  that 
internationalism  and  peace  go  together,  and  that 
both  are  conditions  of  civilization,  and  most  of 
those  who  disagree,  may  meet  me  with  another 
line  of  argument.  Peace,  they  may  say,  may  be 
desirable,  but  it  is  impossible  ;  for  the  issue  pf 
peace  or  war  does  not  depend  upon  the  will  and 
intelligence  of  man.  The  course  of  history  is 
determined  by  "  laws,"  and  these  are  not  under 
the  control  of  human  volition.  States  are  like 
living  organisms.  They  grow  and  expand.  And 
since  there  is  not  room  for  them  all  to  expand 
indefinitely,  they  necessarily  come  into  antagonism 
and  war.  This  kind  of  fatalism  is  the  stock-in- 


28      THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

trade  of  the  champion  of  war.  Here  is  a  char- 
acteristic example  from  Germany  : — 

"  So  long  as  England  exists  as  a  World  Power, 
she  will  and  must  see  in  a  strong  Germany  her 
foe  to  the  death.  .  .  .  The  war  between  her  and 
us  is  not  confined  to  such  narrow  geographical 
limits  as  the  war  between  France  and  Germany. 
It  turns  upon  the  mastery  of  the  seas,  and  the 
priceless  values  bound  up  with  that,  and  a 
coexistence  of  the  two  States,  of  which  many 
Utopians  dream,  is  ruled  out  as  definitely  as  was 
the  coexistence  of  Rome  and  Carthage.  The 
antagonism  between  England  and  Germany  will 
therefore  remain  until  one  of  them  is  finally 
brought  to  the  ground."  l 

Now,  the  plea  of  necessity  here  advanced  is 
merely  a  rhetorical  form.  It  is  the  passion  of 
the  writer  for  the  destruction  of  England  and  the 
aggrandizement  of  Germany  that  suggests  the 
necessity  of  a  struggle  to  the  death.  Men  of 
this  type — and  they  are  to  be  found  in  all  countries 
— think  in  terms  of  world-conflicts,  because  they 
have  no  other  interest  in  life.  It  is  that  way 
that  their  imagination  leads  them.  And  as  they 
are  often  men  of  powerful  will,  of  high  position, 
and  of  fervid  eloquence,  they  are,  and  will  always 
be,  dangerous  opponents.  Nothing  can  meet  and 
conquer  them  but  conviction  equally  strong  on  the 
other  side.  But  this  elemental  passion  is  buttressed 
up  by  theories  that  are  demonstrably  false.  Pro- 
fessors and  journalists  and  pseu do -scientists  cater 

1  Quoted  from  a  Pan-German  organ  by  the  Forum  of  July 
1915,  p.  164. 


THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT    PEACE     29 

like  jackals  for  these  lions.  And  the  doctrine  of 
a  necessary  expansion  of  States  leading  necessarily 
to  war  becomes  transformed  from  a  formula  of 
ambition  to  a  pretended  law  of  history.  To  fully 
expose  these  fallacies  would  require  more  space 
than  is  here  at  my  command.  But  the  chief  points 
may  be  briefly  indicated. 

What  is  meant  by  the  expansion  of  a  State? 
Presumably,  increase  either  of  population,  or  of 
territory,  or  of  trade.  Are  these  things  "  in- 
evitable "?  And,  if  they  be,  do  they  lead 
"  inevitably  "  to  war? 

Let  us  take,  first,  population.  In  the  past, 
the  growth  of  population  has  gone  on  without 
the  control  of  will,  and  may  in  that  sense  be 
called  "  natural  "  and  "  inevitable."  It  has  also 
led  to  war  ;  because,  in  early  stages  of  society, 
increase  of  population  necessitates  migration  in 
mass,  and  the  attempt  to  settle  where  other  people 
are  already  settled,  and  to  encroach  upon  their 
scanty  food  supply.  But  in  the  modern  world 
all  that  is  changed.  The  development  and  organi- 
zation of  industry  has  made  it  possible  to  feed 
an  increasing  population  on  a  limited  area.  And, 
if  migration  takes  place,  it  does  not  involve  war. 
It  means  merely  that  producers  leave  one  country 
to  add  to  the  productive  forces  of  another.  Nor 
is  that  all.  The  growth  of  population  is  now  under 
human  control.  The  birth  statistics  of  all  civilized 
countries  show  it.  Population  need  not  increase, 
and,  in  fact,  it  tends,  in  the  more  civilized  countries, 
to  be  stationary.  Whether  this  is  a  good  or  a  bad 
thing,  or  under  what  conditions  it  is  good  or  bad,  I 


30     THB>  BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

do  not  here  discuss.  It  is  enough  to  have  reminded 
the  reader  that,  in  the  modern  world,  neither  is 
increase  of  population  an  inevitable  fact,  nor  is 
it,  when  it  occurs,  an  inevitable  cause  of  war.  That 
kind  of  "  expansion,"  therefore,  may  be  dismissed 
as  irrelevant  to  the  argument. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  territory.  The  appro- 
priation of  territory  can,  as  a  rule,  only  be 
accomplished  by  war,  and  usually  involves  further 
wars  to  hold  it.  And  this,  of  course,  is  peculiarly 
true  of  appropriations  of  territory  in  Europe.  It 
may  be  said,  indeed,  with  substantial  truth,  that  in 
Europe,  for  centuries  past,  a  principal  cause  of 
war  has  been  the  desire  to  acquire  or  recover 
territory.  But  in  all  this  there  has  been  nothing 
"  inevitable."  Annexation  is  an  act  of  policy, 
amenable  to  criticism  and  reason,  and  for  this 
policy  there  are  various  motives.  Leaving  out 
of  account  the  wars  that  have  been  waged  by 
nations  to  recover  the  control  of  a  territory  that 
has  been  filched  from  them,  and  confining  our- 
selves to  aggressive  annexation,  we  may  group 
the  motives  under  the  headings  of  power,  defence, 
and  trade. 

Of  these,  the  most  common  has  been  the 
love  of  power,  on  the  part  not  of  peoples  but 
of  their  rulers.  And  that  motive  still  persists 
among  the  Jingoes  of  all  nations.  The  present 
war,  for  instance,  is  believed  by  many  people  to 
have  been  caused  solely  by  the  ambition  of 
Germany  to  annex  territory.  However  that 
may  be,  there  have  been  put  forward  recently 
by  influential  circles  in  Germany  demands 


THE   BASIS   OF  PERMANENT   PE^fcE     31 

for  the  annexation  in  east  and  west  of  an  area 
of  80,000  square  miles  and  a  population  of  sixteen 
millions  of  recalcitrant  non-Germans.  Is  there 
anything  "  inevitable  "  about  such  demands  or 
about  the  interminable  conflicts  that  must  ensue 
from  the  attempts  to  make  them  good?  Clearly 
not.  No  "  vital  interest  "  of  Germany  dictates 
them.  On  the  contrary,  Germans  themselves  are 
the  first  to  point  out  the  disastrous  consequences 
of  such  a  policy,  not  only  to  the  peace  of  the 
world  but  to  the  German  Empire.  The  whole 
movement  for  annexation  is  based  on  a  false  con- 
ception of  national  interest.  And  the  same  may  be 
said  of  any  scheme  to  annex  to  any  nation  civilized 
populations  that  have  not  themselves  expressed  the 
desire  for  incorporation.  Much  of  our  trouble  in 
Europe  has  its  root  in  such  annexations  in  the  past. 
There  is  no  intelligent  and  well-informed  man  who 
does  not  know  and  admit  it  ;  and  who  does  not, 
further,  know  and  admit  that  the  well-being,  not  of 
Europe  only  but  of  every  nation  in  Europe,  depends 
upon  the,  grant  of  a  reasonable  autonomy  to  such 
alien  populations  as  may  continue  to  be  included  in 
any  State. 

Such  annexations,  nevertheless,  it  may  be 
urged,  are  rendered  necessary  by  considerations  of 
defence  ;  to  "  round  off "  a  frontier,  to  acquire 
strategic  points,  to  secure  the  command  of  home 
waters.  Observe  the  circular  nature  of  such  argu- 
ments. You  postulate  the  "  inevitability  "  of  a 
future  war  ;  and,  in  order  to  secure  yourself,  you 
take  the  very  measures  that  provoke  it.  Thus 
the  Germans  annexed  Alsace-Lorraine,  largely  for 


32     Ttf£   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

strategic  reasons,  with  the  result  that  they  had  a 
permanent  menace  on  their  western  frontier.  Thus 
the  Italians,  we  have  reason  to  suspect,  in  order 
to  secure  the  command  of  the  Adriatic,  propose 
to  annex  a  population  of  recalcitrant  Slavs,  and 
thus  to  precipitate  a  war  which  otherwise  need 
never  have  occurred.  On  such  lines  has  the 
human  mind  worked  hitherto  in  international 
affairs.  Is  it  not  time  that  the  plain  man 
gave  some  attention  to  the  matter,  and  began 
to  inquire  for  himself  into  the  principles  and 
practice  of  the  "  experts "  on  whose  judgment 
he  has  hitherto  been  content  so  passively  to 
rely? 

But  I  shall  be  told  I  am  omitting  the  one 
important  consideration.  It  is  not  mere  lust  for 
conquest  that  drives  modern  nations  to  annex  terri- 
tory, nor  is  it  necessities  of  defence  ;  it  is  the 
"  vital  interest  "  of  markets  and  trade.  Germany, 
for  instance  (let  us  take  that  case),  desires  to  in- 
corporate Belgium  and  Holland  for  the  sake  of 
outlets  for  her  trade.  What  1  But  already  German 
trade  passes  freely  up  the  Scheldt  and  the  Rhine  ! 
It  is  not  necessary  to  "  own  "  a  country  in  order 
to  send  trade  through  it.  "  No  1  But  if  the 
country  be  not  your  own  it  may  always  inter- 
fere with  your  trade  !  "  It  may  !  As  Austria- 
Hungary,  for  example,  has  done  with  Servian  trade, 
as  Italy,  in  possession  of  Trieste,  might  do  with 
German  trade.  The  fear  is  legitimate.  But  on 
what  is  it  based?  On  no  "  natural  necessity," 
but  011  human  policy.  These  situations  arise 
because  nations  believe  that  they  can  benefit  them- 


THE   BASIS    OF   PERMANENT   PEACE     33 

selves  by  hampering  other  people's  trade,  and  that 
it  is  right  to  do  so.  But  they  are  mistaken  in 
thinking  that  they  so  benefit  themselves  ;  and,  if 
they  were  not  mistaken,  they  would  still  be  wrong 
so  to  act  ;  wrong,  in  the  first  place,  because  it  is 
mean  and  base  to  try  to  make  other  people  poor 
in  order  that  you  yourself  may  be  rich  ;  wrong 
because,  even  if  that  be  not  admitted,  the  policy 
in  question  is  an  underlying  cause  of  war  ;  and 
no  supposed  economic  advantage  could  balance  the 
material  and  spiritual  evils  of  war.  Wherever  it 
is  claimed  that  economic  necessity  compels  annexa- 
tion, the  answer  is,  "  free  trade  "  or  "  free 
transit."  That  is  the  alternative  to  annexation 
and  consequent  war.  Who  would  not  really  choose 
it,  once  the  issue  were  fairly  and  squarely  put? 

The  same  argument  applies  to  the  competition 
of  nations  for  markets  and  concessions  in  unde- 
veloped countries.  Such  competition  is  one  of  the 
root  causes  of  the  friction  that  leads  to  war.  The 
Morocco  crisis  illustrates  the  point.  Twice  Europe 
was  on  the  verge  of  war  because  France  was  de- 
termined to  annex  Morocco,  and  because  Germany 
feared  (not  without  good  reason)  that  she  would 
pursue  there  her  traditional  policy  of  excluding  all 
other  nations  from  the  trade  and  resources  of  the 
country.  And  the  Morocco  crisis  was  one  element 
in  the  complex  situation  out  of  which  the  present 
war  developed.  But  in  that  crisis  there  was 
nothing  "  inevitable."  So  far  as  the  economic 
factor  was  concerned,  it  was  French  policy  that 
caused  the  danger,  not  international  competition. 
Let  the  nations  in  all  such  cases  not  only  formally 

3 


34     THE  BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE 

adopt  but  loyally  carry  out  the  principle  of  the 
"  open  door  "  ;  let  them  determine  to  co-operate 
or  to  compete  openly  and  honourably  in  all 
such  areas  ;  and  the  danger  of  war  from 
that  cause  is  conjured.  Human  policy,  not 
natural  necessity,  governs  the  whole  issue. 
There  may  indeed  be  trade  wars  in  the 
future,  as  there  have  been  in  the  past.  But  it 
will  not  be  because  of  a  historical  law.  It  will 
be  because  of  the  ignorance,  the  stupidity,  or  the 
short-sightedness  of  corporate  interests,  peoples,  or 
governments . 

I  have  said  enough,  I  hope,  to  indicate  to  the 
reader  how  baseless  is  the  assumption  that  the 
rivalry  of  nations  "  inevitably  "  brings  them  into 
war.  It  will  so  bring  them  if  it  is  wrongly  handled, 
if  wrong1  feelings  and  false  ideas  continue  to  prevail 
in  the  future  as  they  have  prevailed  in  the  past. 
But  there  is  no  fatality  in  the  matter.  It  will  be 
as  the  nations  choose  and  will  it  to  be.  Behind 
wars  is  not  a  blind  necessity,  but  causes,  definite, 
ascertainable,  and  removable.  I  have  tried  here 
to  indicate  some  of  the  principal  of  these.  They 
and  their  remedies  are  discussed  more  in  detail  in 
later  chapters.  Meantime,  let  me  sum  up  the  con- 
tentions of  this  one.  The  first  and  most  obvious 
cause  of  wars  is  the  armed  peace  itself  ;  and  I 
have  suggested  to  the  reader  that  this  cause  alone 
would  be  sufficient.  If  we  could  get  rid  of  arma- 
ments and  of  fear,  we  might  get  rid  of  war. 
The  attempt  is  sometimes  made  to  attack  this 
problem  from  the  side  of  armaments.  But  in  fact 
it  seems  idle  to  hope  that  nations  will  discard 


THE   BASIS   OF   PERMANENT   PEACE     35 

armaments  until  they  feel  security.  For  that 
reason  in  this  book  the  problem  of  armaments  is 
not  separately  and  prominently  attacked.  The 
attempt  rather  is  made  to  show  how  security  might 
be  attained.  Given  that,  disarmament  would 
follow. 

Security,  however,  can  only  be  attained  by  in- 
ternational agreement  ;  and  international  agree- 
ment requires  the  international  mind.  For  that 
reason  I  have  dwelt  upon  that  aspect  of  nationalism 
which  makes  it  the  enemy  of  internationalism  and 
that  form  of  patriotism  which  expresses  itself 
in  antagonism  to  other  nations.  That  there  is  a 
truer  nationalism  and  a  finer  patriotism  I  not  only 
admit,  I  maintain  and  insist.  But  that  kind  not 
only  is  not  opposed  to,  it  demands,  international 
organization.  For  it  demands  peace  and  good- 
will ;  and  these  things  cannot  otherwise  be 
attained.  I  ask  the  reader,  therefore,  to 
correct  in  himself  that  habit  into  which  we 
have  all  fallen  of  regarding  the  absolute  inde- 
pendence of  States  as  essential  to  their  well-being, 
and  to  modify  the  feeling  which  is  at  the  root 
of  that  habit.  So  only  can  he  be  prepared  for 
those  concessions  to  international  comity  which  are 
essential  if  Western  civilization  is  to  be  preserved. 
Further,  I  have  urged  that  just  as  a  true  and 
desirable  nationalism  is  not  incompatible  with  an 
organized  internationalism,  so  is  the  reasonable 
pursuit  of  national  aims  and  interests  not 
antagonistic  to  the  pursuit  of  similar  aims  by 
other  nations.  Nations  must  compete  as  indi- 
viduals must  ;  but  they  are  no  more  bound  there- 


36     THE  BASIS   OF  PERMANENT   PEACE 

fore  to  make  war  than  individuals  are  to  fight 
duels.  The  aims  of  nations,  so  far  as  they  are 
legitimate,  are  not  mutually  incompatible.  And 
so  far  as  they  are  illegitimate  they  ought  to  be 
abandoned.  Political  and  economic  aggression — 
that  is,  the  policy  of  conquest  and  of  "  Protec- 
tion " — is  what  brings  nations  into  war.  These 
policies  are  mistaken,  as  much  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  welfare  of  the  individual  nations 
as  from  that  of  international  comity.  That  the 
growing  democracy  now  coming  into  control  of 
affairs  should  understand  this  from  the  beginning  ; 
that  it  should  not  be  misled  by  false  doctrines  ;  that 
it  should  come  with  a  fresh  and  free  mind  to  the 
consideration  of  these  great  issues  ;  and  that  it 
should  develop  an  international  control  of  diplo- 
macy, based  upon  national  control  in  each  country 
—that  is  the  condition  of  a  durable  peace.  The 
aim  is  neither  chimerical  nor  Utopian.  But  it  is 
opposed  by  very  powerful  forces.  Some  of  these 
are  traditions  and  impulses  strong  in  us  all  ;  some 
are  false  opinions  and  false  ideals  ;  some  are  the 
machinations  of  interested  cliques  desiring  to  per- 
petuate strife  that  they  may  fish  in  the  troubled 
waters.  All  these  make  for  war.  What  makes 
for  peace?  Not  religion,  not  science,  not  learn- 
ing1, not  education.  All  these  serve  war  as  much 
as  they  serve  peace.  There  is  one  only  that  works 
for  peace,  that  human  reason  which  is  also  human 
charity.  With  that  white  sword  alone  can  we 
prevail.  Will  the  peoples  seize  and  wield  it  as 
it  drops  from  the  hands  of  those  who  should  have 
been  their  leaders?  Upon  the  answer  to  that 
question  depends  the  fate  of  the  world. 


NATIONALITY 


NATIONALITY 

By  CHARLES  RODEN  BUXTON 

I 

THE  idea  of  nationality  is  best  examined,  not  by 
trying  to  frame  a  definition  which  will  fit  all  the 
facts,  but  by  looking  at  the  facts  themselves.  The 
definition  will  emerge  later.  What  lies  imme- 
diately before  us  is  a  number  of  peoples  who  have 
an  intense  desire  to  express,  in  some  distinct  form 
of  government,  what  they  conceive  to  be  their 
nationality.  Some,  like  the  Croats,  Bohemians, 
Poles,  and  Finns,  have  had  such  a  government 
in  quite  modern  times.  Others  have  never  had  it, 
or  had  it  only  in  the  shape  of  some  transient 
Empire  in  the  dim  past.  Some  want  full  inde- 
pendence ;  some  would  be  satisfied  with  autonomy 
within  a  larger  unit.  Some,  like  the  Italians, 
Roumanians,  and  Serbs  of  Austria-Hungary,  desire 
union  with  an  existing  free  State.  Others  desire  the 
creation  of  a  new  political  entity.  With  some  the 
common  bond  is  identity  of  language  or  religion  ; 
with  others,  the  belief  that  they  spring  from  the 
same  stock  and  have  shared  from  time  immemorial 
in  the  same  sufferings  and  achievements.  Two 
things  are  common  to  them  all.  They  are  all 

39 


40  NATIONALITY 

baulked  of  their  hopes,  and  they  are  all  prepared 
to  make  untold  sacrifices  to  realize  them. 

The  nationality  principle  is  merely  another  form 
of  the  democratic  principle.  To  the  thorough- 
going democrat  this  should  be  enough.  Here  are 
peoples  of  which  the  overwhelming  majority  desire 
a  certain  political  object.  Let  them  have  it,  he 
will  say,  provided  it  does  not  clash  with  the 
desire  of  some  larger  section  which  has  a  right 
to  be  heard  in  the  matter.  And  in  point  of  fact  it 
does  not,  as  a  rule,  clash  with  the  desires  of  any 
such  section,  but  only  with  the  imperialist  and 
militarist  ambitions  of  the  ruling  classes  of  some 
strong  State  founded  on  conquest. 

And  democracy,  rightly  understood,  should  carry 
us  a  stage  farther.  For,  whether  the  claims  of 
nationality  are  reasonable  or  not,  their  satisfaction 
is  one  of  the  prime  conditions  of  peace,  and  without 
peace  democracy  is  for  ever  insecure.  If  sores 
are  left  open  which  cannot  be  healed  without 
further  war,  then  European  democracy,  however 
brilliant  its  triumphs,  will  be  founded  upon  a  vol- 
canic crust  which  may  at  any  time  collapse 
into  the  molten  lava.  The  principal  reason  why 
democracy  has  hitherto  made  so  little  progress  is 
that  its  march  has  been  so  constantly  interrupted 
by  war.  In  almost  every  peace  treaty  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  the 'claims  of  nationality  have  been 
flouted,  and  recurring  war  has  been  the  result. 

But  are  we  to  ignore  the  question  whether  these 
claims  are  or  are  not  reasonable?  Are  we  simply 
to  accept  them  as  a  primary  fact  like  the  law  of 
gravitation?  Not  altogether,  though  to  those  who 


NATIONALITY  41 

have  felt  by  personal  contact  the  intensity  of  thte 
national  sense  in  peoples  deprived  of  their  free- 
dom and  unity,  and  the  way  in  which  these  great 
words  seem  to  blind  them  to  almost  every  other 
thought,  there  seems  to  be  nothing  absurd  in  the 
notion.  It  is  not  likely  that  anything  we  can  do 
or  say  will  make  a  Bohemian  of  Prague  or  a 
Bulgarian  of  Southern  Macedonia  reconsider  the 
rooted  instinct  which  tells  him  that  his  spiritual 
home  is  a  free  Bohemia  or  a  free  Bulgaria.  Yet 
democracy  itself  must  be  founded  upon  the  solid 
basis  of  reason  and  forethought.  If  the  peoples 
are  to  work  out  their  own  salvation,  and  co-operate 
with  each  other  in  working  out  the  salvation  of 
all,  they  must  think.  They  must  take  into  account, 
not  one  great  fact  but  all  great  facts.  They 
must  not  be  led  by  mere  sympathy  to  throw  them- 
selves whole-heartedly  into  the  support  of  a  claim, 
however  strong,  which  conflicts  with  the  conditions 
of  the  modern  world.  Does  the  claim  of  nationality, 
pure  and  unmixed,  conflict  with  these  conditions? 
Will  it  fit  into  the  new  environment,  the  new  world 
which  we  hope  to  create  for  all  the  peoples  after 
the  war  is  over?  What  does  it  really  stand  for  in 
human  life?  What  can  it  give  to  the  world? 
With  what  dangers,  if  any,  does  it  threaten  the 
world? 

At  this  point,  at  which  we  come  to  closer  quarters 
with  our  problem,  we  need  to  ask  ourselves  a  little 
more  exactly  what  it  is.  A  German  newspaper 
writer  remarks  that  Germany  would  readily  give 
up  Alsace-Lorraine,  Posen,  and  Schleswig  if  Russia 
would  give  up  Finland,  Poland,  Samarcand, 


42  NATIONALITY 

Bokhara,  and  other  places,  and  England  would 
give  up  India,  Egypt,  Cyprus,  Malta,  and  Gibraltar. 
Viewed  in  this  light,  we  are  tempted  to  say  of 
nationality  what  Hazlitt  said  of  the  opera,  "  It 
is  a  very  fine  thing  ;  the  only  question  is  whether 
it  is  not  too  'fine."  Evidently  no  Great  Power 
will  be  prepared  to  'accept  so  wide  a  definition  of 
nationality  as  that  of  our  sarcastic  German.  One 
might  waste  a  great  deal  of  time  in  arguing  about 
the  border-line  of  the  subject.  Let  me  say,  to 
simplify  matters,  that  I  rule  out,  for  the  purposes 
of  the  present  chapter,  the  peoples  of  India,  Egypt, 
and  Persia.  The  nationalist  movements  of  these 
countries  make  a  strong  appeal  to  our  sympathies. 
There  are  many  Englishmen  who  are  prepared  to 
help  them  forward.  But  to  place  them  with  those 
of  the  European  nationalities  would  be  to  misrepre- 
sent the  significance,  and  belittle  the  force,  of  the 
latter.  I  am  speaking,  then,  in  the  main,  of  certain 
specific  peoples — Alsatians  and  Lorrairters,  Italians, 
Finns,  Poles,  Bohemians,  Ruthenes,  Roumanians, 
Serbo-Croats,  Bulgarians,  Greeks,  and  Armenians. 
I  omit  the  Irish,  on  the  assumption  that  some  form 
of  national  self-expression  is  now  assured  to  them. 

II 

It  will  be  as  well  to  recognize  at  the  outset 
that  there  are  several  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a 
full  application  of  our  principle.  Roughly,  they 
may  be  divided  into  two  classes — those  which  make 
the  observance  of  strictly  national  frontiers  incon- 
venient on  economic  and  strategic  grounds,  and 


NATIONALITY  43 

those  which  are  inherent  weaknesses  in  the  principle 
of  nationality  itself.  Let  us  take  these  in  order. 

Nature,  migration,  and  conquest  have  disposed 
the  population  of  the  'world  without  any  regard 
to  the  best  economic  units  or  the  most  defensible 
boundary  lines.  The  most  obvious  examples  of 
the  economic  difficulty  are  the  Poles,  Bohemians, 
and  Hungarians,  who  do  not  occupy  any  point  on 
the  sea-coast,  and  who  do  not  possess  within  their 
own  borders  a  sufficient  variety  of  raw  material. 
Tariff  walls,  again,  often  run  counter  to  the 
national  principle.  The  producers  and  business 
men  of  Alsace-Lorraine  have  for  years  past  made 
all  their  arrangements  on  the  basis  of  the  tariffs, 
the  markets,  the  railway,  the  banking  and  credit 
systems,  and  the  business  connections  of  Germany. 
The  same  may  be  said,  in  a  lesser  degree,  of  the 
economic  position  of  Poland  in  relation  to  Russia. 
Some  of  these  difficulties  could  only  be  completely 
surmounted  by  freeing  such  ports  as  Fiume,  Trieste, 
and  Danzig,  and  the  navigation  of  rivers  like  the 
Danube,  Vistula,  Elbe,  Scheldt,  and  Rhine,  from 
all  restrictions,  others  by  commercial  treaties  or 
free  exchange. 

With  regard  to  strategic  questions,  there  are 
obvious  reasons  why,  in  a  world  dominated  by 
the  fear  of  war,  the  desires  of  a  people  for  a 
national  government  should  have  to  give  way  to 
the  exigencies  of  fleets  or  armies.  Frontiers  have 
been  settled  again  and  again  with  a  view,  not  to 
the  desire  of  the  inhabitants  but  to  military  or 
naval  needs.  If  we  are  to  escape  from  this 
necessity,  we  must  ask  ourselves  the  question,  must 


44  NATIONALITY 

the  world  be  always  dominated  by  the  fear  of 
war? 

These  are  difficulties  which  might  conceivably 
be  surmounted  in  time  ;  but  is  there  not,  it  may 
be  urged,  something  in  the  nature  of  nationality 
itself  which  is  fundamentally  opposed  to  the  kind 
of  progress  we  are  aiming  at?  We  sympathize 
with  an  oppressed  nation,  but  when  we  have  set 
it  on  its  feet,  does  it  not  become  in  its  turn  an 
oppressor,  using  the  arts  of  its  own  former  tyrants 
with  an  ingenuity  born  of  long  experience?  Does 
not  "  nationality  militant,"  to  borrow  a  term  from 
the  ecclesiastical  world,  pass  over  into  something 
odious  and  repulsive  when  it  becomes  "  nationality 
triumphant  "?  In  nations  that  have  acquired  and 
established  their  freedom,  in  France,  in  Germany, 
and  in  Italy,  is  not  the  very  word  "  Nationalist  " 
applied,  and  naturally  applied,  to  the  Imperialist 
parties,  which  aim  at  extending  the  sway  of  the 
nation  over  other  nations?  Is  not  the  desire  of 
a  successful  nation  to  spread  its  particular  type 
of  civilization  essentially  the  same  desire  as  that 
which  inspires  a  subject  race  to  defend  its  culture 
against  that  of  its  rulers?  Is  not  the  claim  to 
national  self-expression  invariably  followed  by  the 
claim  to  world-power?  In  a  word,  is  not  the 
intense  desire  for  national  independence,  with  all 
that  it  entails,  the  direct  enemy  of  internationalism, 
that  wider  conception  which  must  inspire  the  next 
great  step  in  the  progress  of  the  world? 

I  cannot  answer  these  questions  in  a  manner 
wholly  favourable  to  the  cause  of  nationality. 
Nor  do  I  wish  to  strike  a  balance  between  the 


NATIONALITY  45 

merits  and  the  demerits  of  that  cause,  for  the 
factors  are  very  numerous  and  perhaps  in  part 
incommensurable,  and  to  think  out  the  problem 
for  oneself,  unaided  and  unguided  by  some  one 
else's  personal  opinion,  is  perhaps  the  most  useful 
process  from  the  point  of  view  of  building  up 
an  enlightened  public  opinion.  I  will  content 
myself  with  pointing  out  some  practical  con- 
siderations which  have  a  bearing  on  the  problem. 

When  nationalities  are  mixed  in  fairly  equal 
proportions,  as  are  the  Hungarians,  Germans, 
Roumanians,  and  Serbo-Croats  of  Southern 
Hungary,  it  is  true  that  the  principle  of  nationality 
is  an  inadequate  guide.  But  such  districts  are 
not  common,  and  we  are  far  from  having  reduced 
our  problem  to  these  narrow  limits.  The  ordinary 
case  is  that  of  a  preponderant  nationality  with  an 
"  Ulster  "  enclosed  in  it  or  mixed  up  with  it.  This 
case  can  be  met,  partially  at  least,  by  distinct 
and  recognized  provisions  for  the  linguistic  and 
ecclesiastical  rights  of  the  minority  in  connection 
with  local  government  bodies,  churches,  schools, 
and  other  institutions.  There  is  always,  no  doubt, 
a  difficulty  in  making  these  provisions  effective  ; 
in  the  long  run  this  can  only  be  done  by  assuaging 
inter-racial  hatreds  and  diminishing  the  danger 
of  war. 

Many  of  the  difficulties  which  attend  the  realiza- 
tion of  nationality  would  be  avoided  if  autonomy, 
rather  than  complete  national  sovereignty,  were 
the  object  aimed  at.  There  is  undoubtedly 
something  crude  and  primitive  in  the  latter  claim, 
in  spite  of  the  almost  axiomatic  character  with 


46  NATIONALITY 

which  long  usage  has  invested  it.  In  point  of 
fact,  the  farther  West  we  go,  the  more  we  find 
that  autonomy,  or  a  freedom  restricted  by  the 
requirements  of  some  larger  political  unit,  is 
proving  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  national  claim. 
Irish  history  during  the  past  century  provides  a 
good  example  of  the  change  from  the  one  idea  to 
the  other.  The  farther  East  we  go,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  more  we  have  to  admit  the  dangers 
and  difficulties  which  spring  from  the  demand  for 
unfettered  sovereignty.  Cruder  tyrannies  have 
produced  a  cruder  reaction.  We  cannot  blame  the 
Balkan  peoples  for  this.  It  is  unreasonable  to 
expect  them  to  skip  over  a  stage  which  has 
hitherto  seemed  indispensable  in  political  develop- 
ment. But  it  is  probable  that  even  in  the  East 
nationalist  ideas  will  become  increasingly  tinged 
by  the  conception  of  autonomy. 

Ill 

And  now,  having  faced  the  admitted  difficulty 
of  applying  our  principle  without  considerable 
exceptions  and  reservations,  we  may  turn  to  the 
positive  contribution  which  nationality  makes  to 
the  progress  of  the  world.  The  matter  must  be 
looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  both  of  each 
nation  and  of  civilization  as  a  whole. 

To  nations  in  an  early  stage  of  development, 
particularly  those  formerly  subject  to  Turkey, 
nationality  stands  for  many  things  that  we  in  the 
West  have  ceased  to  associate  with  the  term,  and 
now  value  under  other  names.  It  means  the  attain- 


NATIONALITY  47 

ment  for  the  first  time  of  culture,  of  refinement, 
of  education  for  their  children,  of  the  right  to 
worship  as  they  think  fit.  To  most  subject 
peoples  the  realization  of  nationality  means  the 
realization  also  of  democratic  government.  The 
two  aims  are  largely  inspired  by  the  same  feelings. 
In  1848  the  French  and  German  struggles  were 
mainly  directed  to  the  latter,  while  the  Italian 
and  Hungarian  were  mainly  directed  to  the  former, 
but  neither  struggle  was  exclusively  democratic  or 
exclusively  national. 

So  inextricably  does  the  aim  of  nationality 
become  bound  up  with  other  aims,  that  there  is 
a  tendency  to  think  that  none  of  them  can  be 
realized  until  national  self-expression  has  been 
secured,  and  to  neglect  the  steps  which  might  be 
taken,  even  under  present  conditions,  to  realize 
them.  This  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  Balkans. 
The  whole  energy  of  the  nation,  both  in  thought 
and  action,  is  too  often  turned  into  the  one  channel. 
Nothing  else  counts.  Education,  social  reform, 
honesty  in  public  life,  economic  development — all 
lag  behind,  because  all  are  subordinated  to  the 
overmastering  passion  of  nationality. 

When  it  becomes  a  question,  not  so  much  of 
securing  self-government  and  culture  but  of 
securing  a  particular  type  of  these  things  as 
opposed  to  another  type,  we  are  dealing  with  some- 
thing a  little  less  tangible,  the  need  for  which 
is  sometimes  disputed  by  political  thinkers.  The 
members  of  races  subject  to  Austria  and  Germany, 
for  example,  do  not  as  a  rule  suffer  very  seriously 
if  they  are  content  to  live  a  quiet  life  apart  from 


48  NATIONALITY 

all  public  interests,  to  shut  themselves  up  within 
the  circle  of  their  family  and  friends,  to  follow 
their  daily  business,  and  not  to  take  any  part 
whatsoever  in  "  movements,"  whether  political  or 
otherwise.  If  they  do,  then  it  is  a  matter  of 
police  spies,  perpetual  interference,  the  suppression 
of  newspapers,  the  imprisonment  of  editors  and 
thinkers  and  political  leaders,  the  extinguishing 
of  every  manifestation,  however  slight  it  may  be, 
of  anything  distinctively  national — flags,  meeting's, 
exhibitions,  processions,  pamphlets,  songs,  and 
books.  It  means  the  creation,  in  a  word,  of  an 
atmosphere  intolerably  depressing  and  irritating  to 
men  with  a  belief  in  progress  and  in  human  fellow- 
ship. Some  will  say  that  the  question  whether 
a  certain  type  of  thought  and  of  public  life  and 
social  habits  shall  or  shall  not  prevail,  whether 
the  type  shall  be  French  or  German,  Polish  or 
Russian,  is  not  a  point  worth  fighting  about.  Few 
would  say  this,  however,  if  they  had  experienced 
what  it  means  to  a  people  to  be  denied  all  political 
and  "  cultural  "  self-expression.  To  Englishmen 
that  experience  is  so  remote  that  they  find  it 
difficult  to  comprehend.  It  is  for  this  reason, 
coupled  perhaps  with  a  certain  contempt  for 
teachers  and  artists,  that  we  have  actually  no 
equivalent  for  the  word  "  cultural,"  without  which 
the  Polish  or  Bohemian  nationalist  would  hardly 
know  how  to  express  himself. 

Nationality  stands,  then,  in  the  mind  of  a  people 
struggling  to  be  free,  not  indeed  for  the  whole, 
but  for  a  large  part,  of  what  we  feel  to  be  good 
and  desirable  in  human  life.  It  stands  for  self- 


NATIONALITY  49 

development  and  self-expression,  in  so  far  as  these 
ends  require  for  their  realization  a  wider  sphere 
than  that  of  individual  or  family  life — the  sphere  of 
combination  and  association,  above  all  of  govern- 
ment. It  stands  for  the  cultivation  of  those  national 
habits  of  life  and  thought  which  are  dearer  to  us 
than  others  because  they  are  in  a  fuller  sense 
"  our  own  " — just  as  family  customs  and  family 
words  have  a  peculiar  savour  for  us,  creating  as 
they  do  a  whole  atmosphere^  and  calling  up, 
without  any  need  of  explanatory  speech,  a  hundred 
common  memories  and  familiar  ties.  This  self- 
expression,  this  cultivation  of  things  so  dearly 
prized,  is  the  object  upon  which  a  nation's  hopes 
are  concentrated  in  the  days  of  its  servitude. 

Does  the  experience  of  liberated  nations  justify 
such  hopes?  Some  think  not.  They  point  to  tyranny 
in  Hungary  and  corruption  in  Italy.  They  say 
that  the  dreams  of  1848  and  1860  have  faded 
into  something  tame  and  grey,  sordid  and  dis- 
appointing. Perhaps  the  disappointment  is  only 
the  fruit  of  an  exaggerated  expectation.  In  South- 
Eastern  Europe,  where  liberation  has  meant  a 
change  from  disorder  to  order,  and  the  reclaiming 
for  civilization  of  a  desert,  no  one  could  possibly 
question  the  reality  of  the  progress  made.  But 
even  where  the  change  has  been  less  complete 
and  striking,  there  has  been  a  gain.  Life  is  wider 
and  fuller  for  a  nation  in  which  the  people  accept 
the  form  of  the  government  and  co-operate  in 
working  it.  Such  a  nation  is  a  higher  political 
organism  than  an  empire,  however  vast  its  extent 
or  however  overwhelming  its  power,  in  which  the 

4 


50  NATIONALITY 

citizen  is  denied  the  free  exercise  of  his  political 
and  associative  faculties,  except  in  the  heated  and 
morbid  atmosphere  of  resentment  and  intrigue. 
There  is  a  gain  of  inward  satisfaction,  the  removal 
of  a  sense  of  wrong.  True,  a  people  no  sooner 
gains  its  freedom  than  it  begins  to  crave  and 
strive  for  something  further.  Whitman  has  told 
us  that  "  from  any  fruition  of  success  shall  come 
forth  something  to  make  a  greater  struggle 
necessary."  But  at  least  a  step  on  the  road  has 
been  taken,  and  we  in  the  West,  who  conceive 
all  life  as  a  road,  feel  instinctively  that  that  means 
an  advance  to  something1  better. 

IV 

But  it  is  when  we  take  the  point  of  view  of 
civilization  as  a  whole,  not  that  of  individual 
nations,  that  we  appreciate  most  fully  the  value 
of  the  national  spirit.  When  our  grandfathers 
and  great-grandfathers  were  fired  with  enthusiasm 
for  Greece  and  Italy  and  Hungary,  they  conceived 
themselves  to  be  maintaining,  not  merely  the  rights 
of  Greeks,  Italians,  and  Hungarians,  but  some 
common  and  fundamental  interest  of  mankind.  It 
is,  in  fact,  to  the  interest  of  mankind  that  there 
should  exist  the  greatest  possible  variety  of  types 
of  thought  and  action.  The  world  progresses  most 
when  it  is  able  to  choose  between  a  wide  range 
of  different  courses.  Those  which  are  inherently 
good  will  tend  to  survive.  Those  which  are  trivial 
or  useless  will  be  ignored.  No  one  can  judge 
which  should  be  encouraged  and  which  suppressed 


NATIONALITY  51 

— least  of  all  a  single  imperial  Power  or  a  group 
of  such  Powers.  The  best  chance  is  to  let  all 
the  varieties  bloom  and  flourish,  and  to  trust  to 
the  free  choice  of  humanity  to  take  or  leave  them. 
This,  the  essential  doctrine  of  Liberalism,  is  not 
a  bloodless  abstraction  as  applied  to  the  matter 
now  in  hand.  What  a  treasure-house  of  civilization 
is  revealed  to  us  in  the  national  life  of  our  fellow- 
peoples,  whether  those  which  have  won  their 
freedom  already,  or  those  whose  dreams  and  hopes 
derive  more  brilliant  colour  and  deeper  emotional 
meaning  from  the  very  fact  that  they  are  still 
unsatisfied.  Just  as  England  contributes  her  sense 
for  political  liberty,  France  her  intellectual  honesty 
and  lucidity,  Germany  her  industry  and  discipline, 
Italy  her  aesthetic  aptitude,  so  Finland  has  her 
advanced  democracy,  Poland  her  music  and  art, 
Bohemia  religious  independence,  the  Serbs  their 
warm  poetic  temperament,  the  Greeks  their  subtlety 
and  their  passion  for  the  past,  the  Bulgarians  their 
plodding  endurance  and  taciturn  energy,  the 
Armenians  their  passion  for  education  and  pro- 
gress. And  each  of  these  characteristics  is  merely 
a  faint  indication  of  what  is  distinctive  in  the 
people  concerned.  Peoples  are  not,  in  fact,  to  be 
distinguished  from  one  another  by  a  single  mark, 
detaching  itself  from  a  background  of  pure 
similarity.  It  is  the  total  combination  of  qualities, 
of  historical  events,  of  natural  surroundings,  which 
makes  them  what  they  are — conglomerations  of 
various  and  conflicting  personalities  and  parties, 
touched  nevertheless  with  some  unifying  character 
which  makes  even  their  very  divisions  distinctive. 


52  NATIONALITY 

National  culture  may  some  day  give  place  to 
cosmopolitan  culture,  but  meantime  it  is  a  richer 
and  intenser  thing.  The  poetry  of  a  nation,  for 
instance,  gains  more  from  the  deep  roots  of 
national  memory  and  tradition  than  it  loses  from 
the  political  boundaries  which  fence  it  from 
the  air  and  sun  that  might  come  to  it  across 
neighbouring  gardens.  The  whole  gains  by  the 
fuller  development  of  every  one  of  its  parts. 


It  will  be  noted  that  the  question  hitherto  dis- 
cussed is  that  of  nationality,  rather  than  that  of 
"  small  nationalities."  The  difference  in  size  has 
far-reaching  consequences.  A  large  nation  may 
be  content  to  rely  upon  its  strong  arm  ;  but  if  we 
are  to  have  any  hope  at  all  of  placing  the  smaller 
nationalities,  in  Mr.  Asquith's  words,  "on  an  un- 
assailable foundation,"  we  must  work  out  some 
system  of  international  relations  which  will  secure 
the  right  of  the  weaker  State  against  the  aggression 
of  the  stronger.  ,We  must,  in  other  words,  sub- 
stitute law  for  brigandage  and  private  defence. 
We  must  do  in  the  international  sphere  what  the 
woman's  movement  demands  that  we  shall  do  in 
the  national  sphere — recognize  that  inferiority  in 
physical  strength  shall  be  no  reason  for  any  kind 
of  disability.  Just  as  inter-individual  war,  or  the 
possibility  of  it,  precludes  the  equality  of  women 
with  men,  so  international  war,  or  the  fear  of  it, 
precludes  the  equality  of  small  nations  with  large. 
This  shows  at  a  glance  the  absurdity  of  supposing 


NATIONALITY  53 

that  war  in  itself — the  victory  of  one  group  of 
armies  and  fleets  over  another — can  possibly  place 
the  rights  of  the  smaller  nationalities  on  an  un- 
assailable foundation.  It  might  for  the  moment 
protect  Belgium,  or  Serbia,  or  Poland  ;  but  it 
would  leave  these  and  all  other  small  peoples  in 
the  same  position  as  before,  so  far  as  security  for 
the  future  is  concerned.  War,  and  the  fear  of 
war,  inevitably  puts  a  premium  upon  large 
centralized  States,  because  large  centralized  States 
are  the  best  means  of  wielding  force.  If  a  few 
small  peoples  refuse  to  yield  to  this  general 
tendency,  they  do  so  at  their  peril.  An  inter- 
national agreement  to  prevent  war  would  place 
small  nations  in  a  position  of  security,  and  nothing 
else  would  do  it.  The  ideal  of  the  nationalist, 
"the  independent  existence  and  free  development" 
of  all  the  peoples,  would  thus  be  attained. 

VI 

It  is  now  time  to  turn  to  the  Great  War,  and 
to  ask  what  is  its  relation  to  the  nationality 
problem.  Each  side  claims  that  it  is  fighting  for 
certain  oppressed  nationalities.  How  far  can 
these  claims  be  justified?  It  is  as  well  to  look 
first  at  the  belligerent  Powers  and  see  how  far 
they  themselves  conform  to  the  principle  of 
nationality.  We  see  at  once  that,  from  this  point 
of  view,  Austria -Hungary  and  Turkey  stand  on 
quite  a  different  level  from  the  rest.  It  is  a 
misuse  of  language  even  to  describe  them  by  the 
same  term  as  countries  like  England  or  France, 


54  NATIONALITY 

Germany  or  Russia.  I  include  the  last  two 
Powers  because,  so  far  as  subject  white  nationali- 
ties are  concerned,  they  are  only  offenders  to  the 
extent  of  about  one-seventh  of  their  population. 
Broadly  speaking",  they  are  nations,  with  a  national 
soul  and  character,  while  the  Dual  Monarchy  and 
the  Ottoman  Empire  are  not  nations  at  all,  but 
composite  structures  formed  by  the  conquest  of 
many  nations.  There  is  a  strange  topsy-turvey- 
dom  in  our  popular  conception  of  the  war.  We 
entered  into  it,  we  believe,  for  the  sake  of  small 
nationalities,  yet  there  is  actually  a  strong  current 
of  pro-Austrianism  and  pro-Turkism  among  us, 
as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  savageries  of 
Austria  in  north-west  Serbia  and  of  Turkey  in 
Armenia  are  usually  thrown  into  the  back- 
ground by  our  press.  Historically,  of  course,  this 
current  is  caused  by  the  sympathy  of  one  ruling 
race  for  other  ruling  races,  and  by  the  now  dis- 
carded anti-Russian  policy  of  the  Victorian  era. 
It  is  none  the  less  dangerous  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  interests  of  nationality. 

The  nature  and  composition  of  the  belligerent 
Powers,  then,  suggests  that  in  this  matter  of 
nationality  the  balance  inclines  strongly  in  favour 
of  the  Quadruple  Entente.  Nor  is  this  the  only 
sense  in  which  we  are  "  fighting  for  nationality." 
.We  English  may  fairly  say  that  we  went  to  war 
for  it,  in  the  sense  that  it  was  the  wrongs  of 
Belgium  which  produced  the  popular  enthusiasm 
for  the  war.  We  may  fairly  add  that  our  ideas 
of  self-government,  as  illustrated  in  recent  times 
by  our  South  African  policy  and  our  Home  Rule 


NATIONALITY  55 

movement,  are  far  in  advance  of  those  of  other 
Empires,  and  that  as  a  people  we  earnestly  desire 
that  national  claims  should  receive  their  due  weight 
in  the  settlement.  And  this  is  not  all.  The 
Quadruple  Entente  as  a  whole  may  be  said  to 
be  fighting  for  nationality  hi  another  sense — the 
sense,  namely,  that  its  victory  could  be  made  to 
contribute  to  the  liberation  of  subject  peoples  in 
a  far  higher  degree  than  the  victory  of  its  enemies. 
In  order  to  illustrate  the  point  let  us  take  certain 
extreme  examples.  Let  us  suppose  that  either  the 
Entente  or  the  Alliance  were  in  a  position  to  dictate 
terms.  The  examples  are  artificial,  but  they  help  to 
clear  our  minds.  Note,  first,  that  there  are  certain 
nationalities  whose  position  would  quite  probably 
be  much  the  same  in  either  case — the  Poles,  who 
would  probably  gain  autonomy,  and  the  Finns,  the 
Ruthenes,  and  the  Jews,  whose  national  interests 
would  probably  not  be  affected.  There  remain 
the  Bohemians,  the  Alsatians  and  Lorrainers,  the 
Danes  of  Schleswig",  the  Italians  of  Southern 
Austria,  the  Serbo-Croats  and  Slovenes,  the 
Roumanians,  the  Bulgarians,  the  Greeks,  and  the 
Armenians. 

Now,  a  victory  for  the  Entente  would 
(assuming  that  the  settlement  were  inspired  by 
nationalist  conceptions)  satisfy  the  claims  of  the 
majority  of  these  peoples,  numbering1  in  round 
figures  30,000,000.  A  victory  for  Germany, 
Austria,  and  Turkey,  on  the  other  hand,  would 
make  it  almost  impossible  to  satisfy  any  of  them, 
with  two  exceptions — the  Bulgarians  of  Central 
Macedonia  and  the  Roumanians  of  Bessarabia, 


56  NATIONALITY 

whose  liberation  would  be  more  than  outweighed 
by  the  continued  subjection  of  their  brethren 
in  Hungary.  No  one  supposes  that  the  choice 
is  in  fact  between  the  freedom  or  subjection 
of  the  whole  of  these  30,000,000.  The  actual 
choice  lies,  of  course,  between  much  narrower 
limits,  because  no  dictatorship  is  possible  on  either 
side.  A  partial  victory  would  open  the  way  to 
correspondingly  partial  results.  But  the  broad 
black  and  white  outlines  do  provide  a  true  picture 
of  the  issue  which  was  raised  upon  the  tragic  stage 
of  Europe  when  the  Austrian  armies  crossed  the 
Drina  in  the  summer  of  1914.  One  might  almost 
say  that  this  is  the  greatest  issue  of  the  war, 
if  one  interprets  the  word  "  issue  "  as  meaning 
a  point  which  could  really  be  settled  by  the  war, 
and  in  all  human  probability  could  not  be  settled 
without  it.  This  is  the  real  sense  in  which  we 
are,  if  we  choose — but  only  if  we  choose — "  fight- 
ing for  nationality."  , 

How  far  we  are  likely  to  choose  this  course, 
how  far  indeed  we  shall  be  in  a  position  to  choose 
it,  even  if  we  desire  to  do  so,  is  another  question. 
In  the  welter  of  conflicting  interests  many  things 
that  we  should  have  liked  to  do  will  be  found  to 
be  out  of  our  reach.  The  fact  is  that  to  engage 
in  a  European  war,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be 
punctilious  about  nationality,  is  impossible.  Such 
a  war  may  begin  as  a  struggle  of  nationalism 
against  imperialism,  but  it  cannot  remain  so.  It 
must  inevitably  develop  into  a  conflict  between  rival 
imperialisms.  In  Central  Macedonia  our  diplomacy 
has  led  us  into  the  position  of  supporting  Serbian 


NATIONALITY  57 

imperialism  as  against  Bulgarian  nationalism  ; 
while  in  Dalmatia,  if  the  universal  belief  is  true, 
we  are  endeavouring  to  substitute  Italian  for 
Austro-Hungarian  imperialism,  as  against  the 
national  claims  of  the  Serbo-Croat  population.  No 
good  can  possibly  come  of  shutting  our  eyes  to 
these  incidental  results  of  war.  They  do  not  alter 
the  fact  that  there  are  a  great  number  of  cases 
in  which  we  shall  still1  be  free  from  commitments. 
There  will  be  many  doubtful  issues  at  the  settle- 
ment in  which  the  influence  of  this  country  will 
very  probably  be  decisive,  and  we  must  make  the 
best  of  these  opportunities  for  helping  forward  the 
cause  of  nationality. 

There  remains  a  final  point.  We  are  not  likely 
to  make  much  of  these  opportunities  if  we  leave 
the  whole  matter  in  the  hands  of  the  diplomatists. 
The  tradition  of  the  Foreign  Offices  of  Europe 
is  wholly  indifferent  to  nationality.  It  moves  in 
an  atmosphere  altogether  alien  to  such  ideas. 
Diplomacy  is  much  more  concerned  with  the  tem- 
porary interests  of  governments  than  with  the  per- 
manent interests  of  peoples.  Every  peace  made 
by  diplomatists — at  Vienna,  Paris,  Frankfurt, 
Berlin,  Bukharest — has  borne  testimony  to  this. 
We  cannot  take  for  granted  that  the  statesmen  of 
the  Quadruple  Entente — among  whom  those  of  our 
own  country  will  be  in  the  minority — will  go  out 
of  their  way  to  help  forward  the  principle  of 
nationality  except  upon  one  condition.  That  condi- 
tion is  that  there  shall  be  a  public  opinion,  definite, 
alive,  not  to  be  denied,  which  shall  insist  that  the 
principle  be  applied.  Democratic  influence  in  the 


58  NATIONALITY 

settlement  of  the  war  offers  the  only  security  that 
the  interests  of  nationality  will  be  seriously  con- 
sidered. By  this  it  is  not  meant  that  every  English 
citizen  can  be  expected  to  pronounce  upon  the 
exact  frontiers  of  Poland,  the  rights  to  be  accorded 
to  the  Hungarian  minority  in  Transylvania,  or  the 
methods,  whether  of  plebiscite  or  of  impartial 
inquiry,  whereby  the  wishes  of  any  given  popula- 
tion should  be  ascertained.  There  will  be  different 
degrees  of  knowledge,  some  greater  and  some  less. 
But  we  ought  not  to  admit  the  too  commonly 
accepted  idea  that  the  sister  nations  of  Europe 
can  never  be  more  than  a  name  to  the  English 
democracy — that  the  aspirations  and  the  main 
characteristics,  for  example,  of  a  noble  race  such 
as  the  Bohemians,  with  a  population  one-third  of 
that  of  England,  is  a  mere  detail  with  which 
Englishmen  cannot  be  expected  to  concern  them- 
selves. That  would  be  to  admit  too  narrow  a 
range  for  international  sympathy.  There  is  more 
likelihood  to-day  than  ever  before  that  the  sym- 
pathy of  one  democracy  for  another  will  be  able 
to  break  through  the  age-long  conventions  of  diplo- 
matic intercourse.  Let  us  not  be  tempted  to 
despair  by  the  cynic  who  cites  to  us,  from  the  past 
conduct  of  all  the  governments  concerned,  painful 
proofs  that  they  have  not  cared  much  for  nation- 
ality, and  that  some  of  them  have  not  even  paid 
it  the  shadowy  compliment  of^  lip  service.  There 
is  no  practical  use  in  seizing  upon  this  obvious 
opening  for  scepticism.  Let  us  rather  take  the 
declarations  of  statesmen  at  their  face  value,  recog- 
nizing that  the  declarations  themselves  create  a 


NATIONALITY  59 

new  condition  of  things,  that  they  oblige  the  Powers 
which  have  made  them  to  take  steps  to  realize 
them,  and  that  there  are  among  the  statesmen  not 
a  few  who  are  anxious  to  have  behind  them  a 
popular  demand  which  will  enable  them  to  take 
these  steps.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  peoples  to  see 
to  it  that  the  declarations  of  their  governments 
are  not  forgotten. 


THE 

FREEDOM 

OF 

THE  SEAS 


THE   FREEDOM    OF   THE    SEAS 

By  H.   SIDEBOTHAM 

ONE  of  the  promises  of  victory  is  that  Great 
Britain  will  be  able  to  review  her  whole  naval 
policy  in  the  light  of  the  experience  gained  in 
the  war.  Sir  Edward  Grey  has  himself  indicated 
that  such  a  review  may  be  appropriate  in  the 
negotiations  for  peace  after  victory  has  been  won, 
and  the  object  of  this  chapter  is  to  consider  certain 
issues  which,  though  they  are  usually  evaded  now, 
may  then  be  in  the  forefront  of  political  discussion. 
It  is  known  that  the  United  States  of  America 
are  particularly  concerned  in  this  discussion,  and 
German  diplomacy  in  America  has  omitted  no 
opportunity  of  presenting  its  view  of  the  issues. 
Direct  defence  of  German  policy  in  Europe  Count 
Bernstorff  has  hardly  attempted  ;  his  whole  object 
has  been  to  distract  American  attention  from  the 
sins  and  crimes  of  German  militarism  by  making 
a  more  formidable  bogy  of  British  sea  power. 
That  Germany,  who  in  her  submarine  campaign  has 
been  guilty  of  the  most  atrocious  acts  of  naval 
tyranny  in  history,  should  still  have  been  able  to 
represent  herself  as  the  champion  of  the  "  freedom 
of  the  seas  "  without  being  laughed  or  hissed  out 


64          THE  FREEDOM   OF  THE  SEAS 

of  court  in  the  United  States  is  a  paradox  which 
needs  much  explanation.  To  leave  it  unexplained, 
and  to  persist  in  ignoring  the  existence  of  a  very 
grave  problem  of  policy,  is  dangerous  to  the  interests 
of  this  country,  of  which  the  maintenance  of  rela- 
tions of  cordial  friendship  with  the  United  States  is 
not  by  any  means  the  least  important. 

The  ideal  of  the  "  freedom  of  the  seas  "  is  too 
fine  to  leave  in  the  hands  of  the  Germans.  The 
meaning  of  the  phrase  has  greatly  changed  since 
Grotius  more  than  three  hundred  years  ago  wrote 
his  "  Mare  Liberum,"  to  vindicate  the  right  of  the 
Dutch  to  trade  with  the  Indies,  and  to  combat  the 
pretensions  of  the  Portuguese  to  a  monopoly  of  the 
seas  that  they  had  been  the  first  of  Europeans  to 
traverse.  The  sea  captains  of  Elizabeth  had  com- 
bated the  similar  pretensions  of  the  Spanish.  The 
sea  policy  of  the  Stuarts,  however,  asserted  a  definite 
British  sovereignty  over  the  Narrow  Seas  against  the 
Dutch,  and  in  1618  John  Selden  wrote  his  "Mare 
Clausum,"  in  which  he  argued  against  Grotius  that 
there  could  and  should  be  a  national  sovereignty  of 
the  open  seas  precisely  similar  to  sovereignty  of 
land.  That  controversy  ended  in  the  triumph  of  the 
view  of  Grotius,  and,  indeed,  if  he  had  not 
triumphed  British  maritime  supremacy,  which  neces- 
sarily by  its  ubiquity  transcends  the  ideas  of 
territorial  sovereignty,  could  never  have  come  into 
being.  The  seas  are  now  free,  economically  and 
politically,  in  peace  time,  and  the  chief  survival 
of  Selden's  contentions  is  the  doctrine  of  terri- 
toriality  within  three  miles  from  low- water  mark. 
In  securing  this  freedom  of  the  seas  England  has 


THE   FREEDOM   OF   THE   SEAS          65 

taken  a  leading1  part,  and  any  attempt  to  shackle 
their  freedom  with  the  doctrine  of  territorial 
sovereignty  would  find  England  at  the  head  of 
a  coalition  prepared  to  go  any  lengths  in  resistance. 
But  the  freedom  now  in  question  is  the  freedom, 
not  in  peace  but  in  war.  It  is  a  war  problem 
pure  and  simple,  and  the  conditions  that  pre- 
vail in  peace-time  have  no  sort  or  relevancy. 
England,  for  example,  which  admittedly  is  the  pro- 
tagonist of  its  freedom  in  peace  time,  is,  in  the 
opinion  of  her  critics,  its  most  powerful  opponent 
in  war.  The  "  Mare  Clausum  "  of  Selden's  day  has 
waited  nearly  three  centuries  to  reappear  in  British 
naval  practice  in  the  Proclamation  closing  the 
North  Sea  to  shipping  which  was  issued  as  an 
answer  to  the  indiscriminate  sowing  of  mines  by 
Germany  on  the  high  seas. 

The  outbreak  of  the  war  found  our  Navy  in 
overwhelming  material  strength  and  in  a  high 
state  of  technical  efficiency.  But  it  also  revealed 
hesitancy  and  uncertainty  in  certain  departments 
of  controlling  policy.  No  navy  was  ever  readier 
to  fight  a  fleet  action,  and  (a  few  accidents  apart) 
it  had  carefully  worked  out  the  problems  of  de- 
fending our  shores  from  invasion  and  raid  and 
of  securing  our  sea-communications.  Its  attack, 
however,  against  an  enemy  who  persisted  in 
declining  a  fleet  engagement  was  only  an  equivocal 
success.  In  particular,  its  blockade  of  the  enemy's 
coasts  and  the  strangulation  of  his  commerce  were 
for  long  enough  very  partial  and  hesitating.  This 
hesitancy  contrasted  markedly  with  our  maritime 
policy  in  the  war  with,  Napoleon.  Then  we  had 

5 


66          THE   FREEDOM   OF   THE   SEAS 

no  doubts  whatever  ;  we  asserted  the  right  to 
confiscate  all  enemy's  property  at  sea,  whatever 
the  flag  under  which  it  was  being  carried.  The 
doctrine  that  a  neutral  flag  might  protect  enemy's 
property  which  was  then  put  forward  by  the 
Armed  Neutrality  was  indignantly  repudiated. 
"Shall  we,"  asked  Pitt  in  1801,  referring  to  the 
doctrines  of  the  Armed  Neutrality,  "  give  up  our 
maritime  consequence  and  expose  ourselves  to  scorn, 
to  derision,  and  contempt?  No  man  can  deplore 
more  than  I  do  the  loss  of  human  blood — the 
calamities  and  distresses  of  war  ;  but  will  you 
silently  stand  by  and,  acknowledging  these  mon- 
strous and  unheard-of  principles  of  neutrality, 
insure  your  enemy  against  the  effects  of  your 
hostility  !  Four  nations  have  leagued  to  produce 
a  new  code  of  maritime  law  which  they  endeavour 
arbitrarily  to  force  on  Europe  ;  what  is  this  but 
the  same  Jacobin  principle  which  proclaimed  the 
Rights  of  Man,  which  produced  the  French  Revo- 
lution, which  generated  the  wildest  anarchy  and 
spread  horror  and  devastation  through  that  un- 
happy country?  Whatever  shape  it  assumes,  it 
is  a  violation  of  the  rights  of  England,  and 
imperiously  calls  upon  Englishmen  to  resist  it,  even 
to  the  last  shilling  and  the  last  drop  of  blood, 
rather  than  tamely  submit  to  degrading  conse- 
quences or  weakly  yield  the  rights  of  this  country 
to  shameful  usurpation."  The  passage  illustrates 
the  law  of  history  that  the  more  violent  the  asser- 
tion of  a  principle  is  in  the  one  generation,  the 
more  likely  is  its  repudiation  in  the  next.  Fifty 
years  later  by  the  Declaration  of  Paris  we  accepted 


THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE   SEAS          67 

the  principle  which  Pitt  was  prepared  to  shed  the 
last  drop  of  English  blood  to  resist.  The  Declara- 
tion was  a  great  weakening  of  belligerent  powers  for 
the  sake  of  neutral  right,  a  sacrifice  of  the  offence 
to  the  defence.  The  effect  of  that  Declaration  was 
that  though  the  belligerent's  flag  might  be  chased 
from  the  seas,  his  trade  could  not  be  so  long 
as  there  was  a  neutral  ship  in  which  it  could  be 
carried. 

That  was  not  all.  More  than  fifty  years  after 
the  Declaration  of  Paris  the  Declaration  of  London 
entrenched  neutral  rights  still  more  strongly.  It 
drew  up  a  "  free  list  "  of  articles  which  a  belli- 
gerent could  (so  long  as  there  was  no  blockade) 
import  through  his  own  ports  in  neutral  ships  and 
through  neutral  ports  if  his  own  ports  were 
blockaded.  In  this  list  were  many  articles  of  use 
in  war,  such  as  cotton.  Further,  there  was  a  list  of 
articles  of  conditional  contraband,  which  could  not 
be  stopped  except  on  evidence  that  they  were  in- 
tended for  the  use  of  the  belligerent  Government. 
If  there  was  evidence  that  they  were  so  intended, 
importation  through  a  belligerent  port,  even  under 
a  neutral  flag,  might  be  stopped,  but  not  importa- 
tion through  a  neutral  port.  It  followed  from 
these  two  rules,  to  take  concrete  examples,  that 
cotton  in  war-time  could  be  imported  in  a  neutral 
ship  into  Hamburg  or  Bremen  just  as  though 
there  were  no  war,  and  that  foodstuffs  might  be 
imported  through  a  Dutch  port  even  though  there 
was  proof  that  they  were  intended  for  the  supply  of 
the  German  army.  These  were  very  grave  restric- 
tions of  belligerent  power  at  sea  as  we  had 


68          THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE   SEAS 

exercised  it  in  the  Napoleonic  Wars.  And  the 
railway  communications  of  Europe  created  since 
those  wars  have  greatly  increased  the  effect  of  these 
restrictions.  A  hundred  years  ago,  when  there 
were  no  railways  and  the  roads  were  bad,  to 
blockade  the  ports  of  a  country  was  to  prohibit 
it  from  supplies  over  sea.  Now  the  closing  of 
German  ports  meant  no  more  than  the  diversion 
of  her  traffic  to  neutral  ports,  which  could  not  be 
blockaded.  In  all  the  changes  of  the  law  made 
throughout  the  century  two  principles  are  seen 
to  be  at  work  :  the  principle  that  belligerent 
power  must  yield  to  neutral  rights,  and  the 
further  principle  that  war  is  a  relation  between 
Governments,  and  must  not  be  allowed  to  interfere 
with  the  peaceful  activities  of  trade.  "  I  believe," 
said  Lord  Salisbury  in  1871,  "that  since  the 
Declaration  of  Paris  the  fleet,  valuable  as  it  is 
for  preventing  an  invasion  of  these  shores,  is  almost 
valueless  for  any  other  purpose."  He  forgot  its 
value  in  assisting  our  own  oversea  operations  and 
in  protecting  the  oversea  communications  of  our 
commerce,  but,  subject  to  these  qualifications,  his 
judgment  was,  broadly,  sound.  Some  of  those  who 
agreed  with  him  were  for  denouncing  the  Declara- 
tion of  Paris,  and  for  going  back  to  the  old  rules 
of  the  Napoleonic  Wars  ;  others  agreed  that  as 
the  powers  of  our  fleet  over  the  enemy's  commerce 
had  been  so  reduced,  the  right  course  was  to  give 
up  rights  of  capture,  which  were  worthless  used 
against  a  continental  enemy,  and  might  be 
dangerous  used  against  an  island  Power  like  our- 
selves. The  one  section  said  :  "  You  cannot  afford, 


THE   FREEDOM   OF   THE   SEAS          69 

as  a  naval  Power,  to  respect  this  encroachment  of 
neutral  privilege  on  belligerent  rights."  The  other 
said  :  "You  cannot  go  back  to  Napoleonic  practice  ; 
it  is  dangerous  to  stand  still  ;  the  best  course  is 
to  make  a  virtue  of  necessity,  and  to  proclaim  the 
freedom  of  the  seas  by  abolishing  the  right  of 
capture  of  all  enemy  property  except  contraband." 
The  outbreak  of  the  war  found  the  Government 
halting  dubiously  between  these  two  voices. 

The  Declaration  of  London,  not  having  been 
ratified  by  Parliament,  was  not  binding  in  this 
country,  and  we  were  therefore  free  to  repudiate  it, 
There  were,  however,  difficulties  in  doing  so, 
because,  though  not  ratified,  it  had  been  signed, 
and  it  was,  after  all,  only  by  a  mere  technicality 
of  constitutional  law,  because  the  International 
Prize  Courts  proposed  to  be  set  up  would  supersede 
the  authority  of  English  Prize  Courts,  that  the 
consent  of  Parliament  was  necessary  to  its  validity. 
The  Treaty  guaranteeing  the  neutrality  of  Belgium 
had  not  been  ratified  by  Parliament  either. 
Having  made  this  Treaty  the  main  ground  of  our 
intervention,  and  denounced  the  Chancelloj  for 
describing  it  as  a  "  scrap  of  paper,"  it  was  not 
easy  to  proceed  to  treat  the  Declaration  of 
London  as  a  "  scrap  of  paper."  Neither,  having 
entered  on  the  wa,r  for  the  defence  of  neutral 
rights,  was  it  easy  to  begin  by  withdrawing  the 
rights  guaranteed  to  neutrals  and  non-combatants 
by  the  Declaration  of  London.  The  Allies,  there- 
fore, decided  to  observe  the  provisions  of  the 
Declaration  subject  to  one  modification  :  that  the 
enemy  was  not  to  be  free  to  import  through  neutral 


70          THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE   SEAS 

ports  articles  of  conditional  contraband  destined 
for  belligerent  use.  This  modification,  however, 
did  not  materially  strengthen  our  belligerent 
power.  We  drove  the  enemy's  fleet  off  the  seas, 
not,  however,  without  suffering  losses  which  were 
at  any  rate  commensurate  with  the  enemy's  losses 
through  the  laying  up  of  his  ships  in  port.  There 
was  some  restriction  in  the  enemy's  supplies,  not 
through  our  blockade — for  as  a  blockade  of  Ger- 
many was  useless  without  a  blockade  of  Holland, 
which  was  impossible,  we  had  not  troubled  to  declare 
one — but  through  the  scarcity  of  shipping.  But  the 
economic  strangulation  of  Germany,  so  far  from 
tightening,  was  hardly  beginning. 

Nor  could  it  have  begun  if  Germany  had  kept 
as  legally  within  the  law  as  the  Allies  had  done. 
With  a  folly  that  has  rarely  been  equalled  in 
the  conduct  of  war,  she  proceeded  to  supply  us 
with  cumulative  justification  for  a  strangulation 
that  would  otherwise  have  been  impossible.  She 
sowed  mines  indiscriminately  in  the  high  seas, 
and  the  narrow  escape  off  the  north  of  Ireland  of  a 
great  liner  was  followed  as  a  measure  of  retaliation 
by  the  closing  of  the  North  Sea  except  for  a 
channel  in  the  Straits.  Germany  in  turn  retaliated 
by  the  proclamation  of  her  submarine  blockade, 
which  we  answered  by  placing  a  complete  embargo 
on  all  German  commerce,  inward  and  outward, 
through  her  own  or  through  neutral  ports.  The 
policy  of  the  Tirpitz  faction — a  policy  which  there  is 
reason  to  believe  was  resisted,  though  in  vain,  by 
the  Chancellor  and  the  Moderates — thus  gave  us 
what  nothing  else  could  have  given,  the  opportunity 


THE   FREEDOM   OF   THE   SEAS          7\ 

of  establishing  a  complete  blockade  of  German  over- 
sea trade,  whether  through  her  own  or  neutral  ports. 
If  Germany  had  observed  the  rules  of  war  her  ports 
would  have  been  open  for  the  importation  of  all 
the  articles  on  the  free  list,  including  cotton.  Even 
conditional  contraband  would  have  been  imported 
through  her  own  and  neutral  ports  unless  it  could 
be  proved  that  it  was  for  belligerents  and  not  for 
purely  commercial  use.  And  had  we  attempted 
to  extend  our  rights  farther,  we  could  only  have 
done  so  by  imitating  at  sea  that  gross  invasion 
of  treaty  rights  which  Germany  had  committed 
on  land  by  forcing  her  passage  through  Belgium. 
Those  advantages  German  policy  deliberately  threw 
away. 

Meanwhile,  German  diplomacy  had  been  busy 
in  the  United  States.  It  is  a  fixed  belief  with 
nearly  all  Englishmen  that  British  naval  power 
is  an  instrument  of  liberty  ;  the  phrase  "  maritime 
tyranny  "  is,  to  their  minds,  a  patent  self-contra- 
diction. That,  however,  is  not  a  universal  view,  nor 
is  it  the  view  generally  held  in  the  United  States. 
Ever  since  Benjamin  Franklin's  days  it  has  been 
the  policy  of  the  American  Government  to  press 
for  the  abolition  of  the  right  of  capture  at  sea. 
It  holds  that  this  right  is  as  offensive  to  public 
morality  as  the  taking  of  booty  in  land  operations. 
Throughout  her  chief  opponent  in  securing  this 
reform  has  been  Great  Britain.  Nor  was  America's 
advocacy  of  this  reform  an  example  merely  of 
devotion  to  principle.  Before  the  Civil  War  her 
•merchant  marine  was  second  only  to  ours,  and  to 
build  up  another  great  merchant  fleet  has  long 


72          THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE  SEAS 

been  one  of  the  objects  of  the  Democratic  party. 
But  the  law  of  capture,  it  was  believed  in  America, 
made  it  impossible  for  a  nation  to  retain  its 
merchant  marine  in  war-time  unless  it  had  also 
an  overwhelming  naval  supremacy  over  its 
opponent  ;  and  her  politicians  resented  rules  of 
war  which  exposed  an  inferior  naval  Power  to 
this  penalty.  Moreover,  there  was  a  long  history 
of  quarrel  between  England  and  the  United  States 
on  our  exercise  of  belligerent  rights  against 
neutrals  at  sea.  Nor  did  the  United  States  take 
the  British  view  of  the  political  uses  to  which  our 
naval  power  has  been  put  in  the  past.  The  atti- 
tude of  the  average  friendly  American  to  British 
naval  power  was  and  is  very  much  like  that  of  the 
advanced  English  Liberal  in  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Take,  for  example,  the  follow- 
ing passage  from  Professor  Beesly's  essay  on 
"  England  and  the  Sea,"  and  we  shall  not  be  far 
from  the  attitude  of  mind  of  the  average  American 
now.  It  does  not  invalidate  the  argument  that 
when  Professor  Beesly  wrote  France  was  still  the 
traditional  enemy,  and  that  his  essay  was  a  plea 
for  better  relations  between  this  country  and  the 
great  nation  that  is  now  its  ally  : — 

Suppose  Napoleon  I  had  left  France  a  greal  naval  Power, 
in  possession  of  Portland,  the  Isle  of  Man,  and  the  Aland  Isles  ; 
suppose  one  Fleet  permanently  cruised  off  the  mouth  of  the 
Mersey  and  another  in  the  Baltic  ;  does  any  one  imagine  that 
England  and  the  Northern  Powers  would  ever  be  brought  to 
look  on  such  a  *tate  of  things  as  natural  or  tolerable  ?  If  it 
dated  from  Louis  XIV,  would  a  century  and  a  half  have 
reconciled  us  to  it  ?  Would  a  dozen  treaties  and  peaces  have 


THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE   SEAS          73 

made  it  sacred  in  our  eyes  ?  Should  we  excuse  it  on  the  ground 
of  an  extensive  commerce,  numerous  colonies,  or  the  police  of 
the  seas  ?  Englishmen,  I  think,  would  then  understand  very 
well  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  "  maritime  tyranny,"  which  they 
now  profess  themselves  unable  to  comprehend. 

The  average  American,  in  fact,  was  at  the 
beginning  of  this  war  prepared  to  think  of 
British  naval  power  much  as  the  Englishman  thinks 
of  German  military  power.  Take  each  of  the 
charges  brought  against  German  militarism,  and 
it  does  not  require  much  ingenuity  to  find  a  parallel 
in  the  history  of  British  "  navalism."  The  German 
military  theory  is  to  wage  war  in  the  enemy's  terri- 
tory. It  is  the  British  naval  theory  too.  German 
military  power  has  set  at  naught  the  rights  of 
neutral  Powers.  British  naval  power  has  done 
the  same  in  past  history.  The  bombardment  of 
Copenhagen  by  Nelson  is  a  rough  parallel  (though 
not  one  to  be  pressed)  to  the  invasion  of  Belgium. 
German  militarism  is  cruel  to  non-combatants.  But 
does  a  naval  blockade,  in  its  intention  at  any 
rate,  restrict  to  combatants  the  suffering  that  it 
causes?  Is  not  starvation  by  cutting  off  supplies 
an  equally  efficient  and  more  economical  way  of 
killing  babies  than  by  bombarding  them  with 
1 2-in.  naval  guns  or  dropping  incendiary  bombs 
from  Zeppelins?  Is  there  much  difference,  so  far 
as  the  victim  is  concerned,  between  the  lawless 
looting  of  German  officers  on  land  and  the  con- 
fiscation of  private  property  at  sea  by  British 
officers  in  accordance  with  processes  of  law  which 
the  British  Government  has  persistently  refused 
to  amend?  Such  sentiments,  though  they  appear 


74          THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE   SEAS 

shocking'  and  perverse  to  the  average  English- 
man, occur  quite  naturally  to  the  average 
American.  That  it  should  be  so  postulates  a 
state  of  mind  that  is  a  permanent  danger  to 
relations  of  active  and  cordial  friendship  between 
this  country  and  the  United  States.  And  how 
great  that  danger  is  may  be  inferred  from  the 
fact  that  not  all  the  inhumanity  of  German  sub- 
marine policy,  the  murder  of  American  citizens 
on  the  high  seas,  the  repeated  flouting  of  American 
dignity,  were  able  to  obliterate  in  the  mind  of  the 
average  American  the  idea  that  there  was  no  essen- 
tial difference  between  German  militarism  and 
British  navalism,  that  the  one  was  tyranny  on  land 
and  the  other  tyranny  at  sea.  To  Englishmen, 
Germany's  claim  that  she  was  contending  for 
the  freedom  of  the  seas  seems  merely  impudent 
and  perverse,  especially  when  it  is  put  forward  in 
a  dispatch  replying  to  American  protests  against 
the  killing  of  American  citizens  travelling  by  the 
Lusitania.  Yet  President  Wilson  took  it  quite 
seriously.  In  his  third  Lusitania  dispatch  he 
wrote  : — 

"  The  Government  of  the  United  States  and  the 
Imperial  German  Government,  contending  for  the 
same  great  object,  long  stood  together  in  urging 
the  very  principles  on  which  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  now  insists.  They  are  both  con- 
tending for  the  freedom  of  the  seas.  The  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  will  continue  to  contend 
for  that  freedom  without  compromise  and  at  any 
cost.  It  invites  the  practical  co-operation  of  the 
Imperial  German  Government  at  this  time,  when 


THE   FREEDOM   OF   THE   SEAS          75 

co-operation  may  accomplish  much  and  this  great 
common  object  can  be  most  strikingly  and  effec- 
tively achieved.  The  Imperial  German  Govern- 
ment express  the  hope  that  this  object  may  be 
accomplished  even  before  the  present  war  ends. 
It  can  be.  The  Government  of  the  United  States 
not  only  feels  obliged  to  insist  upon  it,  by  whom- 
soever it  is  violated  or  ignored,  in  the  protection 
of  its  own  citizens,  but  it  is  also  deeply  interested 
in  seeing  it  made  practicable  between  the 
belligerents  themselves.  It  holds  itself  ready  at 
any  time  to  act  as  a  common  friend  who  may 
be  privileged  to  suggest  a  way." 

In  spite  of  the  outrage  of  sinking  the  Lusitania, 
President  Wilson  is  still  ready  to  give  Germany 
credit  for  desiring  the  freedom  of  the  seas  and 
still  remembers  the  early  treaty  with  Prussian 
Frederic,  guaranteeing  exemption  of  the  private 
property  of  Americans  and  Prussians  from  the 
operations  of  war  between  their  countries. 
Germany,  in  spite  of  her  terrible  works,  was 
saved  from  utter  disgrace  in  American  eyes  by 
that  old  faith  in  the  freedom  of  the  seas  which 
she  still  professed.  England's  works  might  be 
less  heinous  and  even  relatively  good  ;  but  the 
faith  was  not  in  her.  And  so  in  spite  of  the  great 
consideration  shown  by  this  country  for  the  interests 
of  the  United  States  and  the  woeful  lack  of  respect 
for  the  United  States  and  for  ordinary  humanity 
shown  by  Germany,  the  two  countries  are  treated 
by  the  United  States  as  equally  at  fault.  And 
in  part  (telicto  potior  est  conditio  defendentis. 
From  which  it  may  be  inferred  how  dangerous 


76          THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE  SEAS 

would  have  been  the  relations  between  this  country 
and  the  United  States  if  Germany  had  not,  with 
a  stupidity  cloaked  but  not  concealed  by  her  in- 
humanity, deliberately  put  herself  in  the  wrong 
by  sowing  mines  broadcast  and  by  torpedoing 
merchantmen  on  the  high  seas  for  no  offence 
known  to  interhational  law  or  morality. 

No  doubt  the  difficulties  of  our  position  were 
exaggerated  by  the  somewhat  unfortunate  methods 
of  retaliation  adopted  by  this  country.  We  could 
have  secured  precisely  the  same  results  by  de- 
claring a  blockade  of  German  ports,  by  extending 
the  doctrine  of  continuous  voyage  so  as  to  cover 
imports  of  contraband  and  quasi-contraband 
through  neutral  ports  by  Germany,  and,  lastly,  if 
these  steps  were  insufficient,  by  extending  our  list 
of  contraband.  Mr.  Asquith's  announced  inten- 
tion not  to  allow  our  embargo  to  be  embarrassed 
by  "  juridical  niceties  "  hardly  became  a  nation 
which  was  defending  the  idea  of  law  in  inter- 
national affairs.  The  law  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  the  forms  which  he  proposed  quite  unneces- 
sarily to  set  aside.  But  whatever  our  Govern- 
ment had  done,  there  would  have  been  great  diffi- 
culty in  extending  our  belligerent  rights  so  as  to 
deal  Germany  a  really  serious  blow.  The  broad 
fact  is  that  but  for  Germany's  violations  of  the 
law  she  might  have  escaped  all  serious  injury  to 
her  economic  life  from  the  operations  of  our  fleet, 
except  such  as  was  inseparable  from  the  scarcity 
of  shipping  and  from  the  cessation  of  the  earnings 
of  her  great  shipping  companies.  Every  outrage 
committed  by  Germany  at  sea  was  the  occasion  of 


THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE   SEAS          77 

a  fresh  accession  of  power  to  the  British  fleet 
which  it  would  not  otherwise  have  acquired.  But 
even  so,  when  Von  Tirpitz  had  done  the  best  for 
the  British  Navy  and  the  worst  for  his  own  country 
by  his  blunders,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the 
British  Navy  by  its  war  on  German  commerce 
appreciably  shortened  the  war  or  indeed  inflicted 
much  more  injury  on  Germany  than  our  own 
shipping  received.  "If  we  look  at  the  example 
of  former  periods,"  said  Lord  Palmerston  in  a 
speech  explaining  the  Declaration  of  Paris  to  the 
Liverpool  Chamber  of  Commerce,  "  we  shall  not 
find  that  any  powerful  country  was  ever  vanquished 
through  the  losses  of  individuals.  It  is  the  con- 
flict of  armies  by  land  and  of  fleets  by  sea  that 
decides  the  great  contests  of  nations." 

To  sum  up,  the  conclusions  so  far  reached  are 
these  :  First,  if  no  injury  had  been  done  to  the 
trade  of  neutrals,  the  British  Navy  would  have 
been  powerless  to  inflict  more  than  inconvenience 
on  the  economic  life  of  Germany — an  inconvenience 
trifling  by  comparison  with  that  caused  by  the 
mobilization  of  the  Army.  Secondly,  even  after 
Germany's  violation  of  the  laws  of  war  and  of  the 
rights  of  neutrals  had  led  to  the  retaliatory 
embargo  on  all  German  trade,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  war  of  our  fleet  on  private  commerce 
has  had  any  appreciable  effect  on  the  duration  of 
the  war.  Thirdly,  whatever  conclusions  may  be 
drawn  from  this  war  must  hold  with  redoubled 
force  of  any  other  conceivable  war.  The  Germanic 
Allies  in  this  war  are  islanded  in  European  con- 
flict. Of  all  the  countries  of  Europe  which  have 


78          THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE   SEAS 

a  seaboard  and  interior  communications  with 
Germany  only  five — Roumania,  Norway  and 
Sweden,  Denmark  and  Holland — are  neutral.  In 
no  other  possible  war  could  the  proportion  of 
neutral  coastline  to  the  area  affected  by  the  war 
be  so  small.  It  is  obvious  that  a  war  on  German 
commerce  with  France  as  a  neutral  or  on  France 
with  Germany  as  a  neutral  would  be  impracticable. 
We  could  not  blockade  a  great  and  powerful 
neutral  country  ;  yet  without  such  blockade  our 
Navy  could  hardly  touch  the  enemy's  oversea  com- 
merce. The  damage  to  the  enemy's  commerce 
by  our  naval  operations  is  therefore  greater  in 
this  than  it  could  be  in  any  other  conceivable 
war,  and  if  it  is  small  in  this  war,  it  would 
be  quite  negligible  in  any  other.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  injury  of  a  commercial  blockade 
against  a  continental  country  is  to  amount  to 
anything,  it  can  only  do  so  at  the  cost  of 
injury  to  neutrals  and  to  the  prejudice  of  our 
politics  in  regard  to  them.  In  a  sentence,  the  seas 
are  too  free  for  the  exercise  of  really  effectual 
naval  war  on  commerce,  not  free  enough  to 
satisfy  neutrals  or  to  establish  the  British  Navy 
as  the  acknowledged  champion  of  international  law 
and  equity  at  sea.  As  Englishmen  of  all  shades 
of  political  opinion  have  agreed,  from  Cobden  to 
Mr.  Gibson  Bowles,  from  Bright  to  Mr.  F.  E. 
Smith,  we  must  go  forward  or  backward.  The 
law  cannot  remain  suspended  between  the  ancient 
and  the  modern  worlds  as  it  was  when  this  war 
broke  out. 

Although    the    blunders    of    Von    Tirpitz    had 


THE   FREEDOM   OF   THE   SEAS          79 

enabled  this  country  to  go  back  a  century  in  its 
practice  and  to  wage  this  war  on  rules  even  stricter 
than  those  of  the  Napoleonic  days,  a  permanent 
practice  cannot  be  founded  on  the  abnormal  and 
transient  justification  of  German  excesses.  The 
alternative  policy  of  going  forward  merits  a 
closer  examination.  What  are  we  to  understand 
by  the  phrase  "  the  freedom  of  the  seas  "?  It 
will  not  do  to  say  that  it  means  freedom  for 
Germany  to  do  as  she  pleases,  for  as  the  quotation 
already  made  from  President  Wilson's  dispatches 
shows,  it  is  possible  to  approve  of  the  idea  even 
while  protesting  against  Germany's  right  to  do 
as  she  pleases.  Moreover,  Sir  Edward  Grey  has 
himself  declared  that  the  idea  may  well  form  the 
subject  of  negotiation  when  the  war  is  over. 

By  the  freedom  of  the  seas  is  meant  the 
exemption  of  commerce  from  the  operations  of 
war  so  long  as  it  does  not  take  part  in  them. 
This  exemption  is  to  apply  to  the  commerce  of 
belligerent  as  well  as  of  neutral  countries  ;  and 
the  proviso  that  the  exemption  is  forfeited  if  com- 
merce takes  a  part  in  military  operations  con- 
templates as  a  necessary  corollary  an  exacter  and 
probably  a  wider  definition  of  contraband  by 
international  agreement.  There  is  no  freedom  so 
long  as  enemy's  private  property  is  liable  to  capture 
at  sea  under  its  own  flag  ;  and  the  phrase  there- 
fore at  the  least  implies  the  acceptance  of  the 
reform  which  the  United  States  have  persistently 
advocated  since  Franklin's  day.  But  the  principle 
may  imply  more.  It  may  be  found  on  examina- 
tion to  involve  the  abolition  of  commercial  as 


8o          THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE   SEAS 

distinguished  from  naval  blockade.  This  dis- 
tinction would  need  very  careful  working  out  in 
detail,  but  two  tests  have  been  suggested:  "  First, 
if  a  port  is  a  naval  arsenal  or  is  sheltering  the 
ships  of  the  enemy,  its  blockade  is  a  naval 
operation  and  is  permissible.  Secondly,  if  a  port, 
though  not  an  arsenal  or  a  place  of  arms,  is 
being  used  as  a  basis  for4  the  operations  of  the 
hostile  fleet,  or  if  it  is  invested  by  land  by  an 
armed  force  and  the  blockade  may  be  held  to 
be  a  completion  by  sea  of  the  siege  lines,  in  such 
case  again  the  blockade  is  permissible.  Non- 
combatants  may  suffer  from  such  blockade,  but 
their  suffering  is  incidental  to  the  scheme  of 
military  operations  and  not  its  whole  or  main 
object,  as  in  commercial  blockade  proper."  ' 
This,  then,  is  the  complete  conception  of  the  free- 
dom of  commerce  on  the  seas,  as  understood  by 
Cobden  ;  but  inability  to  accept  the  whole  would 
not  preclude  this  country,  if  it  saw  fit,  from 
accepting  a  part.  The  United  States  would 
certainly  be  willing  to  accept  a  part. 

The  principles  underlying  such  proposals  for 
securing  the  freedom  of  the  seas  are  broad  and 
simple,  and  correspond  somewhat  closely  with  the 
heads  of  our  quarrel  with  German  militarism. 
German  militarism  is  accused,  and  justly,  of  violat- 
ing the  rights  of  neutrals.  But  we  have  seen 
that  any  naval  war  on  commerce,  if  it  is  to  be 
effective,  must  necessarily  interfere  with  neutral 

1  "  The  Freedom  of  Commerce  in  War."     By  Mancunian.    A 
pre-war  pamphlet  issued  by  the  National  Reform  Union. 


THE   FREEDOM   OF   THE   SEAS          81 

rights  of  trade.  It  takes  two  to  make  a  bargain — 
that  is  to  say,  to  trade  ;  and  any  interference  with 
the  trade  of  one  party  is  necessarily  an  interference 
with  the  trade  of  the  other,  and  this  other  (trade 
between  belligerents  being  suspended  by  war) 
is  always  a  neutral.  It  would  seem,  there- 
fore, to  follow  that  our  advocacy  of  the  rights  of 
neutrals  in  land  warfare  requires  as  its  com- 
plement the  advocacy  of  their  rights  on  the  sea. 
Secondly,  German  militarism  is  accused  of  neglect- 
ing the  distinction  between  combatant  and  non- 
combatant  subjects  of  the  enemy  belligerent.  To 
some  extent,  the  confiscation  of  enemy  property  at 
sea  does  the  same.  Looting  on  land  is  forbidden  by 
law  ;  on  sea  it  is  sanctioned  by  law,  but  ought,  if 
this  principle  of  distinguishing  between  com- 
batants and  non-combatants  is  to  be  enforced,  to 
be  prohibited.  Again,  the  abolition  of  the  right 
of  capture  would  in  effect  internationalize  three- 
quarters  of  the  surface  of  the  globe  and  place 
it  under  the  rule*  of  law.  Ego  terrce  dominus  lex 
marls,  in  Justinian's  phrase.  There  is  some  in- 
compatibility between  our  denunciation  of  Ger- 
many's preponderant  military  strength  as  a  menace 
to  Europe  and  our  assertion  of  our  right  to 
form  a  Navy  double  the  strength  of  any  other. 
Lastly,  what  is  the  radical  vice  of  'German 
militarism  which  we  are  combating  but  its  denial 
of  all  individual  and  private  rights  where  these 
conflict  with  the  will  of  the  State?  It  insists  on 
war  being  a  relation,  not  between  State  and  State, 
but  between  the  individuals  composing  the  States. 
Articles  33-6  of  the  Declaration  of  London,  in 

6 


82          THE   FREEDOM   OF  THE   SEAS 

laying  down  the  rules  of  conditional  contraband, 
draw  a  distinction  between  civilian  and  State  uses 
of  an  article  of  import.  How  can  that  distinction 
be  kept  up  in  dealing  with  a  State  which  when 
it  is  at  war  claims  the  life  and  services  of  every 
one  without  distinction?  Even  in  England  it  has 
become  a  commonplace  that  every  one  is  a  com- 
batant, if  not  in  the  firing  line  then  in  the  munitions 
workshop,  and  if  not  in  the  workshop  then 
at  his  private  work,  increasing  the  taxable  wealth 
of  the  country.  The  system  which  the  necessities 
of  the  war  has  forced  upon  England  is  part  of  the 
permanent  organization  of  the  State  in  Germany, 
and  this  is  what  we  understand  by  "  continental 
militarism."  It  is  not  reasonable  that  Germany, 
who  maintains  this  system  on  land,  and  forces 
her  neighbours  to  adopt  it,  too,  should  claim  to 
enforce  the  rival  system  on  the  other  element. 
As  against  Germany,  we  are  fully  justified  in 
maintaining  the  full  vigour  of  "  navalism  "  as  a 
counterpoise  to  her  militarism.  But  such  a 
counterpoise  of  evils  is  neither  in  our  own  nor 
in  the  general  interest.  There  is  a  clear  distinction 
between  the  end  and  the  means  that  we  take  to 
the  end.  The  end,  as  set  up  by  Mr.  Asquith,  is 
the  destruction  of  militarism.  The  attainment  of 
that  end  necessarily  implies,  if  we  are  sincere, 
the  abandonment  of  "  navalism  " — that  is  to  say, 
the  complete  immunity,  so  far  as  rules  of  war 
can  secure  it,  of  neutrals  and  of  non-com- 
batants from  the  operations  of  naval  war.  And 
if  this  immunity  would  help  us  to  secure  the 
overthrow  of  German  militarism,  we  should  not 


THE   FREEDOM    OF   THE    SEAS          83 

wait  till  the  end  of  the  war  to  concede  it  or  to 
promise  to  concede  it. 

The  same  conclusions  may  be  reached  by  other 
directions  of  thought.  If  it  be  true  that  this  war 
has  made  relations  of  closer  friendship  with  the 
United  States  one  of  the  first  of  our  political 
necessities,  the  story  of  the  negotiations  between 
the  United  States  and  Germany  has  revealed 
the  freedom  of  the  seas  as  an  indispensable  con- 
dition of  that  closer  friendship.  It  may  be,  too, 
that  just  as  the  war  on  land  has  shown  the  excesses 
of  German  militarism  to  be  not  only  crimes  but 
blunders,  so,  too,  the  full  history  of  the  war  will 
show  that  our  attempts  to  wage  war  on  German 
commerce  have  not  materially  influenced  its  pro- 
gress, but  have  caused  us  as  much  loss  as  we 
have  inflicted.  These  arguments,  however,  may 
be  developed  with  more  certainty  when  the  com- 
plete story  of  the  war  is  before  us.  But  though 
they  may,  and  probably  will,  confirm  conclusions 
reached  by  the  argument  based  on  political 
principle  and  international  justice,  they  cannot  in 
any  case  invalidate  them. 


THE 

OPEN 

DOOR 


THE    OPEN    DOOR 

By  J.   A.   HOBSON 

THERE  can  be  no  security  of  durable  peace  unless 
the  chief  economic  causes  of  discord  among  nations 
are  removed.  For  though  the  conscious  motives 
which  incite  nations  to  prepare  for  war  and  to 
engage  in  it  may  be  self-defence,  the  claims  of 
nationality,  the  sentiments  of  liberty  and  of 
humanity,  the  maintenance  of  public  law,  behind 
these  motives  always  lies  the  pressure  of  powerful 
economic  needs  and  interests.  It  is  idle  to  seek  to 
determine  the  relative  strength  and  importance  of 
these  economic  and  non-economic  factors.  We 
need  not  accept  the  cynical  maxim  that  "  all 
modern  wars  are  for  markets  "  in  order  to  realize 
the  part  which  commerce  and  finance  play  in 
fomenting  international  disputes.  But  history 
makes  it  manifest  that  at  all  times  the  contacts 
and  conflicts  between  different  nations  are  chiefly 
due  to  the  attempts  of  members  of  one  nation, 
or  tribe,  or  other  group,  to  seek  its  livelihood 
or  gain  beyond  the  confines  of  its  own  country. 
Migrations  or  plundering  raids,  conducted  under 
the  pressure  of  congested  population  and  scarcity 
of  food,  impulsive  overflows  from  thickly  peopled 
into  sparsely  peopled  areas,  were  chief  causes  pf 

87 


88  THE   OPEN   DOOR 

strife  among  primitive  peoples,  and  must  still  be 
regarded  as  the  deepest  underlying"  sources  of 
disturbance  in  many  parts  of  the  world.  The  large 
highly  organized  commerce  of  modern  times,  taken 
in  conjunction  with  extractive  and  manufacturing 
arts  that  enable  vastly  increased  yields  of  foods 
and  other  material  requisites  of  life  to  be  got 
from  restricted  areas  of  land,  greatly  abates  the 
force  of  these  violent  overflows.  But  this  com- 
mercial intercourse  between  nations  makes  the 
inhabitants  of  every  country  far  more  dependent 
upon  persons  and  events  outside  the  area  of 
their  own  country  than  was  formerly  the  case. 
This  divergence  between  political  and  economic 
areas  of  interest  and  control  is  of  the 
first  significance  in  understanding  our  problem. 
It  enables  us  to  perceive  a  certain  unreality  or 
inadequacy  in  the  stress  laid  upon  "  nationality  " 
or  "  political  autonomy  "  as  the  basis  of  a  satis- 
factory settlement.  No  measure  of  political 
independence,  however  complete,  could  secure  for 
any  moderately  progressive  people  the  freedom 
which  they  require.  For  every  people  needs 
access  to  the  produce  and  the  markets  of  other 
peoples,  the  right  to  buy  and  sell  abroad  on  reason- 
able terms.  The  idea  of  an  economically  self-con- 
tained State  has  long  been  obsolescent.  Though 
militarist  States  have  sometimes  grasped  and  even 
realized  the  possibility  of  reverting  to  a  self- 
sufficing  economic  basis  during  a  period  of  war, 
the  normal  life  of  every  modern  nation  rests  upon 
a  basis  of  large  and  expanding  opportunities  out- 
side its  political  area. 


THE   OPEN    DOOR  89 

Every  modern  industrial  nation,  with  a  large 
and  growing  population,  demands  that  its  Govern- 
ment shall  assist  it  in  securing  and  maintaining 
ample  liberties  and  opportunities  of  access  to  the 
economic  resources  of  other  countries.  It  seeks 
three  economic  liberties.  First  comes  liberty  of 
trade,  the  right  of  access  for  its  traders  and  manu- 
facturers to  buy  and  sell  in  foreign  markets  without 
excessive  or  oppressive  barriers  in  the  shape  of 
tariffs,  tolls,  fines,  or  other  obstacles  or  prohibi- 
tions. As  a  country  becomes  more  thickly  peopled, 
and  so  tends  to  specialize  more  closely  upon  certain 
productive  occupations  especially  adapted  to  its 
natural  resources,  its  working  population,  and  its 
situation,  it  becomes  more  and  more  dependent  for 
some  of  its  essentials  of  livelihood  upon  external 
supplies.  So  far  as  foreign  trade  is  conducted 
between  the  members  of  civilized  nations,  the 
mutual  advantages  of  such  exchange  afford  a  strong, 
though  not  always  a  sufficiently  strong,  basis  for 
free  intercourse.  Cobden  was  not  wrong  when  he 
insisted  that  the  reciprocal  gains  of  free  interchange 
of  goods  formed  a  genuine  guarantee  of  peace. 
How,  then,  does  it  come  to  pass  that  most  civilized 
nations  have  since  sought  to  place  irksome  restric- 
tions upon  this  intercourse,  and  that  a  diagnosis 
of  most  modern  wars  shows  that  the  chief 
directing  motive  is  a  pressure  for  markets?  No 
adequate  answer  to  this  question  is  possible,  until 
account  is  taken  of  the  growing  importance  of  the 
economic  relations  of  civilized  with  uncivilized  or 
undeveloped  countries.  For  it  is  in  their  dealings 
with  these  backward  countries  that  trade  invites 


90  THE   OPEN   DOOR 

economic  and  political  interference,  and  evokes 
international  antagonism.  Though  political  con- 
siderations, missionary  enterprise,  and  other  activi- 
ties of  an  adventurous  people,  appreciably  affect 
these  dealings,  colonization  and  imperial  expansion 
are  essentially  economic  processes.  They  originate 
from  simple  trade. 

For  the  successful  conduct  of  trade,  casual 
visitations  of  merchant  vessels  needed  to  be 
supplemented  by  permanent  settlements,  with  a 
view  to  the  orderly  collection  of  goods  and  the 
application  of  the  stimuli,  inducements,  or  pres- 
sures needed  to  get  natives  to  perform  the 
necessary  work  and  to  acquire  the  habits  of 
consuming  the  articles  of  foreign  barter.  So  the 
foreign  land  and  labour  fall  more  and  more  under 
white  men's  control,  and  the  cultivation  of  sugar, 
coffee,  tobacco,  and  other  crops  supplements  the 
earlier  rude  processes  of  barter  and  collection. 
Roads,  harbours,  and  other  large  permanent  works 
must  be  undertaken,  and  permanent  government, 
half  economic,  half  political,  set  on  foot.  Exploita- 
tion of  the  mineral  and  other  natural  resources 
leads  to  organized  arrangement  for  their  profitable 
working.  Large  capital  is  invested  in  mines  and 
railways,  and  in  cities  suited  to  the  requirements 
of  white  officials  and  business  men. 

Two  important  changes  have  now  come  to  pass. 
Simple  trade  between  the  peoples  of  the  two 
countries  is  no  longer  the  chief  consideration.  The 
backward  country  has  become  an  area  of  profitable 
exploitation  and  investment.  Development  and  in- 
vestment companies  supplement  and  direct  the 


THE   OPEN    DOOR  91 

trading  interests,  and  financial  schemes  for  opera- 
ting gold  mines,  rubber  and  tea  plantations,  and 
for  building  railroads,  are  hatched  by  little  groups 
of  financiers  in  London,  Paris,  or  Berlin.  The 
country  is  now  primarily  an  area  for  investment, 
not  a  mere  outlet  for  the  sale  of  goods.  The  two 
processes,  of  course,  are  intimately  related,  for  in- 
vested capital  goes  out  chiefly  in  the  form  of 
goods,  the  engines,  rails,  mining  plant,  and  other 
stores  which  the  developing  process  requires.  But 
financiers  are  henceforth  in  chief  control,  and 
monetary  operations  control  the  fate  of  the  country 
thus  "  penetrated."  This  economic  change  affects 
political  relations.  White  traders  and  manufac- 
turers have  always  utilized  the  services  of  their 
Governments  to  procure  access  to  foreign  markets, 
sometimes  by  force  of  arms,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Opium  War  with  China.  But  as  soon  as  a  back- 
ward country  has  become  an  area  of  investment, 
political  interference  is  apt  to  be  more  exigent. 
The  processes  of  economic  development  involve 
the  presence  of  white  managers,  engineers,  and 
other  "  outlanders,"  as  well  as  the  control  of 
native  labour  and'  various  interferences  with  native 
habits.  Native  unrest  discloses  a  government  in- 
competent to  the  protection  of  life  and  property. 
The  white  man's  government  must  intervene,  and 
a  "  sphere  of  interest  "  passes  into  a  protectorate, 
whose  political  control  is  apt  to  become  tighter 
in  accordance  with  the  needs  of  the  economic 
situation,  as  interpreted  by  financiers  at  home  and 
"  men  upon  the  spot."  Though  other  political 
and  genuinely  humanitarian  tendencies  commingle 


92  THE   OPEN   DOOR 

with  the  economic  drive  of  events,  the  latter,  being 
consciously  exercised  by  business  men  with  a  clear 
view  of  what  they  want,  is  the  determinant  factor. 
The  recent  history  of  colonial  and  imperial  develop- 
ment on  the  part  of  European  Powers  everywhere 
furnishes  a  convincing  demonstration  of  the 
powerful  secret,  or  occasionally  open,  direction  of 
foreign  policy  by  financial  and  commercial  interests 
working  in  sympathy  with  political  aspirations. 
Egypt,  the  Transvaal,  Morocco,  Tripoli,  Persia, 
Mexico,  China  afford  recent  illustrations  of  this 
direction  of  foreign  policy  by  capitalist  interests. 
The  process  finds,  of  course,  its  most  refined 
expression  in  the  struggles  of  rival  banking  groups 
within  the  several  capitalistic  countries  to  finance 
the  Governments  of  Russia,  Persia,  or  China  and 
to  use  their  respective  Foreign  Offices  to  push  their 
profitable  projects. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  developed  economic 
nation  with  great  reserves  available  for  foreign 
trade  and  investment,  and  with  growing  dependence 
upon  foreign  sources  of  supply,  the  political- 
economic  process  here  described  appears  under  the 
guise  of  economic  liberty.  This  will  be  evident 
from  our  British  outlook,  for  we  have  gone  so 
much  farther  along  this  road  than  any  other  nation. 
Our  effective  "  freedom,"  the  opportunity  to  satisfy 
our  needs  and  tastes,  to  supply  ourselves  with 
the  requisite  variety  of  foods  and  other  articles  for 
our  progressive  standards  of  life,  to  procure  the 
goods  necessary  to  sustain  our  industries  and  to 
promote  our  material  prosperity,  rests  upon  free, 
large,  regular,  and  growing  access  to  the  resources 


THE   OPEN   DOOR  93 

of  other  lands  and  upon  full  opportunities  to  assist 
in  their  discovery  and  development.  In  this  we 
need  "  freedom  of  the  sea,"  or  safe  conduct  for 
our  merchant  ships  over  the  waters  of  the  world, 
the  right  of  entry  into  foreign  ports,  "  freedom 
of  trade  "  in  the  sense  of  the  secure  use  of  trade 
routes  and  markets  upon  equal  terms  with  other 
foreigners,  and  "  freedom  of  investment,"  or  the 
equal  right  to  assist  in  the  profitable  development 
of  countries  which  are  in  need  of  capital.  In  pro- 
portion as  we  are  restricted  in  any  of  these  oppor- 
tunities we  suffer  a  loss  of  economic  liberty,  which 
in  the  last  resort  might  mean  a  loss  of  life  itself. 
What  holds  of  Great  Britain  holds  in  different 
degrees  of  all  other  developed  or  developing 
peoples.  Their  effective  freedom  requires  free  out- 
lets and  equal  opportunities  beyond  the  confines 
of  their  own  political  area. 

Associated  with  the  claims  for  equal  opportuni- 
ties for  commerce  and  investment  is  the  claim 
for  freedom  of  migration.  If  capital  is  properly 
to  play  its  part  in  developing  sparsely  peopled 
countries,  labour  should  be  free  to  enter  them. 
Laissez-aller  is  demanded  alike  in  the  interests 
of  capital  and  of  labour.  Every  restriction  upon 
the  free  flow  of  labour  from  thickly  into  thinly 
populated  lands,  from  lower-waged  into  higher- 
waged  areas,  is  prima  facie  an  interference  with 
the  liberty  of  workers  to  improve  their  conditions 
and  with  the  best  development  of  the  world's  re- 
sources. As  knowledge  of  economic  opportunities 
and  facilities  of  transport  are  enlarged,  this  liberty 
of  migration  is  more  highly  valued,  and  its 


94  THE   OPEN   DOOR 

denial  or  restriction  is  a  more  frequent  and  graver 
source  of  international  friction. 

These  economic  liberties  of  trade,  investment, 
and  migration,  which  are  so  essential  to  the  pros- 
perity or  even  the  existence  of  certain  industrially 
advanced  or  over-populated  countries,  are  unfor- 
tunately found  to  conflict  with  the  "  rights  "  of 
the  rulers  or  inhabitants  of  other  countries  whom 
these  liberties  affect.  By  tariffs,  bounties,  or  pro- 
hibitions, goods  are  refused  free  admittance  to 
profitable  markets  ;  trade  routes  by  land  or  sea  are 
barred  ;  legal  restrictions  are  put  upon  the  acquisi- 
tion or  use  of  land  or  the  control  of  industries 
by  foreign  capital  and  management  ;  monopolies 
or  privileges  are  assigned  by  favour,  corruption,  or 
political  "  pull  "  ;  alien  laws  preclude  the  intro- 
duction of  the  necessary  supplies  of  labour. 
Everywhere  "  liberties  "  of  economic  expansion 
claimed  by  some  nations  are  confronted  by 
"  liberties  "  of  exclusion  claimed  by  others. 

These  conflicts  of  "  liberty  "  underlie  the  armed 
preparations  and  the  wars  of  the  modern  world. 
In  order  to  give  point  to  what  otherwise  may  seem  a 
vague  generality,  I  will  cite  an  interesting  analysis 
of  the  deeper  causes  of  the  present  war  as  they 
present  themselves  to  thoughtful  business  men  in 
a  neutral  country  *  : — 

Consider  the  situation  of  the  present  belligerents  : — 

Serbia  wants  a  window  on  the  sea,  and  is  shut  out  by  Austrian 
influence.  

1  Memorandum  of  the  Reform  Club  of  New  York. 


THE   OPEN    DOOR  95 

Austria  wants  an  outlet  in  the  East,  Constantinople  or 
Salonika. 

Russia  wants  ice-free  ports  in  the  Baltic  and  Pacific,  Con- 
stantinople, and  a  free  outlet  from  the  Black  Sea  into  the 
Mediterranean. 

Germany  claims  to  be  hemmed  in  by  a  ring  of  steel,  and 
needs  the  facilities  of  Antwerp  and  Rotterdam  for  the  Rhine 
Valley  commerce,  security  against  being  shut  out  from  the  East 
by  commercial  restrictions  in  the  overland  route,  and  freedom 
of  the  seas  for  her  foreign  commerce. 

England  must  receive  uninterrupted  supplies  of  food  and  raw 
materials,  and  her  oversea  communications  must  be  maintained. 

This  is  also  true  of  France,  Germany,  Belgium,  and  other 
European  countries. 

Japan,  like  Germany,  must  have  opportunity  for  her  expanding 
population,  industries,  and  commerce. 

The  foreign  policies  of  the  nations  still  at  peace  are  also 
determined  by  trade  relations.  Our  own  country  desires  the 
open  door  in  the  East. 

South  and  North  American  States  and  Scandinavia  are  already 
protesting  against  the  war's  interference  with  their  ocean  trade. 

All  nations  that  are  not  in  possession  of  satisfactory  harbours 
on  the  sea  demand  outlets,  and  cannot  and  ought  not  to  be 
contented  till  they  get  them. 

Nations  desiring  to  extend  their  colonial  enterprises  entertain 
these  ambitions  for  commercial  reasons,  either  to  possess 
markets  from  which  they  cannot  be  excluded,  or  to  develop 
such  markets  for  themselves,  and  be  able  to  exclude  others  from 
them  when  they  so  determine. 

If  any  reasonably  safe  basis  of  settlement  is 
to  be  found,  some  reconciliation  of  these  opposing 
"  liberties  "  must  be  discovered.  To  some  thinkers, 
reared  in  the  older  school  of  economic  harmonies, 


96  THE   OPEN    DOOR 

salvation  lies  in  the  removal  of  all  political  and 
legal  restrictions,  and  a  reversion  of  the  Foreign 
Offices  of  all  countries  to  a  policy  of  non-inter- 
vention. It  is  with  them  a  plain  and  simple 
application  of  the  principles  of  individual  liberty. 
It  should,  they  hold,  be  possible  to  convince  the 
peoples  and  Governments  of  every  country  that 
their  advantage  lies  in  admitting  on  terms  of 
absolute  equality  the  trade,  the  capital,  the  labour- 
power  of  other  countries,  and  in  giving  foreigners 
every  facility  for  assisting  in  the  development  of 
the  national  resources.  In  this  utmost  extension  of 
economic  internationalism  the  greatest  prosperity 
of  the  world  and  of  each  constituent  nation  will 
be  found.  Though  traders  and  investors  are 
primarily  out  for  private  gain,  and  not  for  any 
increase  of  the  wealth  of  their  nation  or  of  the 
world,  their  enterprise  will  incidentally  but  neces- 
sarily secure  the  wider  economic  welfare.  It  must, 
however,  be  objected  that  the  principles  and  prac- 
tices of  most  highly  developed  States  are  so 
strongly  committed  to  fiscal  Protection  and  to  other 
uses  of  political  power  for  the  furtherance  of 
foreign  trade,  as  to  render  any  early  hope  of  an. 
acceptance  of  complete  economic  liberty  chimerical. 
The  financial  position  of  every  belligerent  country 
after  this  war  must  render  any  lowering  of  tariffs, 
involving  sacrifice  of  revenue,  impracticable,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  strong  disposition  to  seek  present 
security,  at  the  expense  of  opulence,  in  closer 
national  self-sufficiency.  It  will,  I  think,  be  recog- 
nized that  the  war  will  have  checked  for  the  time 
being  the  movement  towards  Free  Trade  among  the 


THE   OPEN   DOOR  97 

developed  nations  which  was  discernible  in  recent 
years,  and  that  its  renewal  will  depend  upon  the 
necessarily  slow  process  of  establishing  general 
confidence  in  arrangements  for  a  pacific  future. 

If,  then,  liberty  and  equality  of  economic  oppor- 
tunities form  an  essential  of  any  lasting  settlement, 
the  early  application  of  the  policy  must  lie  in  agree- 
ments for  the  commercial  and  financial  development 
of  extra-European  countries  and  markets.  Suppos- 
ing that  the  eight  Great  Powers,  together  with  the 
smaller  developed  European  countries,  could  come 
to  an  agreement  for  the  equal  admission  of  their 
trade  and  capital  to  all  colonial  possessions,  pro- 
tectorates, or  spheres  of  influence,  present  or  pros- 
pective, not  merely  would  the  gravest  causes  of 
future  antagonism  be  removed,  but  substantial  new 
bonds  of  community  of  international  interest  would 
be  provided. 

"  World-power,"  "  place  in  the  sun,"  "  freedom 
of  the  seas  " — the  three  phrases  which  inspire  the 
aggressive  policy  of  Germany — derive  most  of  the 
potency  of  their  appeal  from  the  sense  of  constric- 
tion which  German  industrial  and  commercial  men 
experienced  as  they  sought  new  outlets  in  the  world 
for  their  produce,  their  capital,  and  their  enter- 
prises. Prussian  militarism,  the  doctrines  of 
Treitzschke  and  Bernhardi,  the  expansive  claims  of 
German  "  Kultur,"  would  have  been  ineffective  had 
they  not  been  supported  by  the  feeling  of  restricted 
enterprise  and  thwarted  ambition  which  led  large 
numbers  of  the  business  men  to  support  the  Flatten 
Verein  and  the  pushful  foreign  policy  it  indicated. 
Though  the  language  of  W.elt-politik,  of  course, 

7 


98  THE   OPEN  DOOR 

had  its  appeal  to  the  sentimental  patriot  in  terms  of 
territory  and  of  political  aggrandizement,  expand- 
ing markets  and  profits  were  the  leit-motif  in  Ger- 
man as  in  other  imperialism.  This  war  is  for 
Germany  in  its  essence  a  great  economic  project, 
designed  to  break  down  the  barriers  which  impeded 
what  her  business  classes  deemed  the  legitimate 
expansion  of  their  enterprise.  Late  in  achieving 
industrial  development  on  modern  lines,  Germany 
found  herself  forestalled  in  all  parts  of  the  New 
World  suitable  for  genuine  colonization,  and  in 
most  of  the  tropical  or  sub-tropical  lands  with 
known  rich  resources  and  available  supplies  of 
native  labour.  As  her  industries  came  to  yield 
larger  surpluses  for  export  trade,  and  her  needs 
of  foreign  supplies  of  foods  and  materials  became 
more  urgent,  this  lack  of  the  preferential  markets, 
with  which  other  competing  industrial  nations  had 
provided  themselves  hi  their  colonies  and  protec- 
torates, and  the  fears  lest  the  growing  intensity  of 
competition  should  close  to  them  the  open  markets 
of  the  British  Empire,  served  to  whet  her  resent- 
ment against  the  existing  arrangements,  and 
were  a  formidable  weapon  in  the  hands  of  aggres- 
sive militarism. 

It  will  no  doubt  be  said  that  such  an  interpreta- 
tion of  their  situation  was  a  foolish  one.  Germany 
was,  in  fact,  advancing  in  industrial  development 
and  in  wealth  faster  than  any  other  nation  ;  her 
foreign  trade,  based  on  cheapness,  on  quality,  and 
on  skilful  marketing,  was  rapidly  expanding,  and 
she  had  no  serious  grounds  for  fearing  any  check 
upon  her  prosperity.  No  people  ought  to  have 


THE   OPEN   DOOR  99 

been  able  to  realize  more  fully  the  truth  of  the 
saying  that  you  do  not  need  to  own  a  country 
in  order  to  trade  profitably  with  it.  Are  Germans, 
then,  the  victims  of  a  mere  illusion,  to  the  effect 
that  imperialism  is  a  commercially  profitable  career 
for  a  nation?  If  they  are,  it  is  an  illusion  shared 
by  all  the  other  nations  which  have  embarked  upon 
the  policy  of  territorial  aggrandizement.  Great 
Britain  is  sated  with  empire,  mainly  the  result  of 
pushful  trading  ;  France,  Italy,  Holland  believe 
themselves  to  derive  great  commercial  advantages 
from  their  colonies  ;  economic  exploitation  has 
underlain  the  recent  experiments  of  Japan  and  the 
United  States  in  the  acquisition  of  oversea 
territory. 

To  dispel  an  illusion  so  widely  prevalent  and 
so  firmly  held  will  not  prove  an  easy  enterprise. 
The  first  step  towards  doing  so  is  to  recognize 
in  what  sense  it  is  and  in  what  sense  it  is  not  an 
illusion.  When  a  powerful  civilized  State  annexes 
or  assumes  political  control  over  an  undeveloped 
country  in  Africa,  or  a  group  of  Pacific  islands, 
securing  internal  order  and  enabling  white  traders 
and  planters  to  live  there  safely  and  conduct  their 
business,  it  is  generally  true  that  this  enlargement 
of  economic  opportunities  brings  an  increase  of 
wealth  for  the  world  at  large.  It  is  also  usually 
the  case  that  the  lion's  share  of  these  economic 
gains,  whether  in  the  shape  of  trade  or  of  lucra- 
tive investment,  falls  to  members  of  the  nation 
which  has  taken  on  the  work  of  "  Empire."  For, 
though  the  doctrine  that  "  trade  follows  the  flag  " 
has  been  stated  in  an  exaggerated  form,  it  con- 


ioo  THE   OPEN   DOOR 

tains  a  considerable  element  of  truth  even  in  cases 
where  political  control  is  not  avowedly  used  to 
secure  an  exclusive  or  a  preferential  market. 
Though  Free  Trade  prevails  throughout  the  British 
Empire  (with  the  exception  of  the  self-governing 
dominions),  political  dominion  and  prestige  are 
undoubtedly  favourable  to  British  trade  and  British 
capital  in  the  work  of  development  which  is  carried 
on.  Imperialism  everywhere  proceeds  by  the 
mutual  support  of  politics  and  commerce.  But 
the  recognition  of  the  commercial  utility  of  the  flag 
by  no  means  implies  that  Imperialism  is  neces- 
sarily or  normally  a  profitable  economic  policy  for 
the  nation  that  pursues  it.  For  the  gains  that 
accrue  to  trie  nation  as  a  whole,  including  the 
advantages  its  trade  enjoys  over  those  enjoyed  by 
other  trading  nations,  are  usually  more  than 
balanced  by  the  expenses  of  government,  including 
the  costs  and  risks,  direct  and  indirect,  of  the 
policy  of  Imperial  aggrandizement.  Even  our 
Empire,  pritna  facie  the  most  prosperous  the  world 
has  known,  would  almost  certainly  be  found,  by 
any  complete  statement  of  the  credit  and  debit 
account,  not  to  be  a  profitable  business  proposi- 
tion. Certainly  the  expansion  of  the  last  genera- 
tion, inclusive  of  the  costs  of  acquiring,  maintaining, 
and  defending  the  new  territories,  would  be  found 
to  have  cost  enormously  more  than  any  present  or 
prospective  addition  it  brings  to  the  wealth  of 
our  nation.  Regarded  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
nation,  the  whole  policy  of  territorial  expansion 
and  the  forceful  foreign  policy  which  it  involves 
are  bad  business.  But  from  the  standpoint  of 


THE   OPEN   DOOR  101 

certain  financial,  commercial,  and  manufacturing 
interests  within  the  nation  it  is  good  business.  For 
the  political  and  military  risks  and  costs  of  this 
colonial  and  foreign  policy  fall  upon  the  nation  as 
a  whole,  while  the  advantages  accrue  to  favoured 
individuals.  So  long,  therefore,  as  groups  of  business 
men  within  each  nation  are  permitted  to  use  the 
diplomacy  and  the  armed  forces  of  their  State  to 
push  their  trade  with  foreign  countries,  to  secure 
for  them  concessions,  spheres  of  exploitation,  and 
other  business  privileges,  and  to  protect  and  im- 
prove the  trade  and  investments  which  they  may 
have  established  by  their  private  enterprise  for 
their  private  profit,  these  perilous  conflicts  of 
foreign  policy  are  likely  to  be  a  fatal  obstacle  to 
any  scheme  of  international  settlement.  The  roots 
of  this  disease  of  imperial  expansion,  which  has 
been  poisoning  the  foreign  policy  of  all  the  Great 
Powers,  lie  in  the  excessive  political  and  economic 
power  of  modern  capitalism.  The  only  radical 
cure  is  the  progress  of  democratic  control  within 
each  nation.  A  genuinely  self-governing  nation 
would  not  permit  its  foreign  relations  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  pressure  of  a  group  of  bankers,  or 
of  financiers  and  contractors,  of  shipowners  and 
merchants,  conspiring  with  ambitious,  jealous,  or 
suspicious  statesmen  and  diplomatists  to  embark 
upon  new,  perilous,  and  expensive  projects  in 
countries  which  do  not  belong  to  them.  The  de- 
terminant acts  of  the  foreign  policy  of  every  civi- 
lized State  are  secretly  influenced,  and  usually 
governed,  by  the  strong  will  and  clear-sighted 
purpose  of  business  men,  who  wish  to  make  money 


102  THE  OPEN   DOOR 

for  themselves  by  persuading"  other  people  into 
putting  their  money  into  projects  for  making  rail- 
ways, developing  minerals,  oil,  rubber,  nitrates, 
etc.,  in  countries  which  are  backward  and  desti- 
tute of  capital.  The  powerful  pressure  of  financial 
and  commercial  interests  along  these  lines  of 
foreign  and  colonial  policy  is,  however,  largely 
an  economic  necessity  due  to  a  distribution  of 
wealth  as  between  the  various  classes  of  the 
advanced  nations  which,  by  restricting  the  quan- 
tity of  capital  that  can  find  profitable  investment 
at  home,  drives  too  large  a  surplus  to  seek  over- 
sea investment.  A  distribution  of  wealth  or 
income  more  favourable  to  the  labouring  popula- 
tion of  each  country  would,  by  raising  the  national 
standard  of  consumption  in  the  body  of  the  people, 
afford  employment  to  a  larger  capital  in  the  staple 
industries  at  home,  while  at  the  same  time  it  re- 
duced the  proportion  of  that  surplus  wealth  in  the 
shape  of  rents  and  profits  which  is  automatically 
saved  and  accumulated  in  the  hands  of  the 
capitalist  class.  The  improved  efficiency  of  the 
industrial  classes,  resulting  from  a  better  distribu- 
tion of  wealth,  might  indeed  produce  so  large  an 
increase  of  wealth  as  to  maintain  the  aggregate 
of  savings  as  large  as  before,  but  the  increased 
demand  for  commodities  exercised  by  the  workers 
would  keep  a  larger  share  of  the  new  capital  at 
home,  and  would  so  proportionately  relieve  the 
pressure  of  that  competition  for  foreign  areas  of 
investment  which  we  see  to  be  the  economic  root 
of  international  discord. 

Peace  in  the  future  cannot  be  secured  without 


THE   OPEN   DOOR  103 

some  such  advance  in  the  arts  of  political  and 
economic  democracy  as  shall  release  the  foreign 
policy  of  the  several  nations  from  the  control  of 
private  interests  engaged  in  pushing  for  profit- 
able markets,  concessions,  and  spheres  of  business 
interests,  and  in  lending  money  to  or  providing 
armaments  for  foreign  Governments. 

But,  it  will  be  said,  this  progress  in  fully 
enlightened  popular  government  within  each  State 
must  be  a  slow  process.  Meantime  what  lines  of 
safety  can  be  laid  down  for  the  present  abatement 
of  economic  conflicts? 

The  proposal  that  Governments  shall  agree  to 
a  simple  policy  of  "  Hands  off,"  leaving  their 
"  nationals  "  free  to  undertake  any  foreign  trade 
or  investments  and  work  of  development  they 
choose  entirely  at  their  own  discretion  and  their 
own  risk,  is  quite  impracticable. 

An  agreement  of  the  Powers  to  proceed  no 
farther  with  the  policy  of  political  absorption  of 
backward  countries,  and  with  the  political  assist- 
ance hitherto  given  to  private  businesses  for 
purposes  of  trade  and  finance,  could  furnish  no 
possible  basis  for  a  pacific  future.  For,  since 
most  of  the  desirable  areas  of  profitable  exploita- 
tion have  already  been  appropriated,  and  are  in 
actual  process  of  economic  absorption,  no  equality 
of  opportunity  could  be  provided  by  an  arrange- 
ment that  would  divide  the  Powers  into  two 
groups,  one  satisfied,  the  other  unsatisfied,  and 
would  preclude  the  latter  for  ever  from  obtaining 
satisfaction.  Great  Britain,  and,  perhaps,  France, 
already  gorged  with  Empire,  might  be  willing  to 


104  THE   OPEN   DOOR 

assent  to  such  a  compact,  but  could  Germany  be 
expected  to  do  so?     Could  Russia  or  Japan? 

No  less  impracticable  would  the  proposal  be 
as  applied  to  the  unabsorbed  portion  of  the  earth. 
The  notion  that  the  Governments  of  the  civilized 
States  could  safely  or  advantageously  leave  the 
further  processes  of  economic  development  to  the 
free  play  of  private  profiteering  enterprise  among 
their  trading  and  financial  classes  must  be  rejected 
as  soon  as  its  meaning  is  realized.  Such  a  policy 
of  naked  laissez-faire  is  quite  inadmissible.  A 
deliberate  acceptance  of  the  theory  that  bands  of 
armed  buccaneers  calling  themselves  traders  are 
free  to  rob  defenceless  savages,  to  poison  them 
with  alcohol  or  opium,  to  seize  their  lands,  impose 
forced  labour,  and  establish  a  slave  trade  is  incon- 
ceivable. Such  laissez-faire  would  soon  convert 
any  rich,  unabsorbed  corner  of  the  world  into  a 
Congo,  a  San  Thome,  or  a  Putumayo,  tempered 
only  by  the  fears  of  native  risings  and  massacres. 
The  mere  abstinence  from  political  intervention  on 
the  part  of  civilized  States  would  plunge  every  un- 
appropriated country  into  sheer  anarchy.  But,  even 
if  the  Governments  or  peoples  of  certain  unde- 
veloped countries  were  able  successfully  to  resist 
the  entrance  of  foreign  trade  and  capital,  and  to 
refuse  all  access  to  strangers,  this  is  not  a  policy 
in  which  other  peoples,  or  their  Governments,  can 
or  ought  to  acquiesce.  No  reasonable  interpreta- 
tion of  rights  of  nationality  or  independence  can 
justify  the  inhabitants  of  a  country  in  refusing  both 
themselves  to  develop  the  resources  of  the  country 
and  to  permit  others  to  do  so.  Such  absolute  jus 


THE  OPEN   DOOR  105 

utendi  et  abutendi  is  no  more  defensible  as  a  right 
of  national  property  than  it  is  of  individual.  The 
wandering  tribes  of  hunters  or  herdsmen  who  may 
form  the  sparse  population  of  fertile  lands,  capable 
of  sustaining1  large  settled  communities  and  con- 
tributing richly  to  the  wealth  and  welfare  of 
surrounding  nations,  cannot  be  permitted  to 
practise  a  policy  of  permanent  exclusion.  The 
deposits  of  nitrates,  rubber,  copper,  or  other  world- 
wealth  which  they  contain  the  world  has  a  right 
to  insist  shall  not  remain  unutilized. 

The  problem  is  twofold  :  first,  how  to  secure 
the  reasonable  rights  of  the  inhabitants  of  such 
undeveloped  countries  against  a  policy  of  plunder, 
extinction  of  life,  or  servitude  imposed  by  the 
people  of  a  powerful  aggressive  State  ;  secondly, 
how  to  secure  equal  opportunities  to  the  members 
of  various  advanced  nations  to  participate  in  the 
work  of  developing  the  natural  resources  and  the 
trade  of  these  backward  countries. 

History  shows  that  the  former  issue,  primarily 
one  of  justice  and  humanity,  is  intimately  bound 
up  with  the  latter,  the  more  distinctively  economic, 
issue.  The  peace  of  the  world  is  dependent  upon 
both.  The  most  ruthless  acts  of  annexation  and 
the  most  wasteful  practices  of  exploitation  have 
been  due  to  the  policy  of  exclusive  possession  and 
protection  imposed  by  the  Government  of  a 
colonizing  nation  in  the  short-sighted  interest  of 
particular  groups  of  traders  or  syndicates  of  capi- 
talists. If  the  Governments  of  all  civilized  nations 
would  consent  to  give  equal  rights  of  commerce 
and  equal  facilities  of  investment  and  develop- 


106  THE   OPEN   DOOR 

mental  work  in  their  colonies  and  protectorates 
to  members  of  all  nations,  this  single  agreement 
would  go  farther  to  secure  a  peaceful  future  for 
the  world  than  any  other  measure,  such  as  reduc- 
tion of  armaments,  general  arbitration,  or 
guarantees  of  national  integrity.  For  not  only 
would  it  greatly  diminish  the  resentment  and  envy 
with  which  the  older  colonizing  Powers  are  regarded 
by  rising  Powers,  such  as  Germany  and  Japan,  but 
it  would  greatly  modify  all  competition  for  further 
acquisition  of  territory.  If  business  interests, 
nationally  grouped,  could  no  longer  hope  to  gain 
by  pressing  through  their  Foreign  and  Colonial 
Offices  for  annexation,  charters,  and  concessions, 
and  exclusive  or  preferential  trading  terms,  the 
chief  grounds  for  suspicion  and  hostility  between 
the  Governments  of  the  Great  Powers  would  be 
removed.  It  might  then  be  a  comparatively  easy 
matter  for  friendly  Governments  to  agree  among 
themselves  what  policy  to  adopt  with  regard  to 
still  unappropriated  countries,  where  dangerous  dis- 
order might  prevail,  or  where  the  joint  interests  of 
all  civilized  peoples  justified  some  interference  or 
control.  One  method  would  be  the  establishment 
of  a  joint  international  protectorate,  exercised  by 
a  Commission  appointed  by  the  permanent  Inter- 
national Council,  or  whatever  body  was  entrusted 
with  the  execution  of  the  Treaty  of  International 
Relations.  Another  would  be  the  delegation  of  this 
duty  of  protection  by  this  international  authority 
to  the  Government  of  some  single  nation,  where 
propinquity  or  other  special  circumstances  rendered 
this  course  advisable.  The  prestige  of  such  "  im- 


THE   OPEN   DOOR  107 

perialism  "  would  not  arouse  much  jealousy  if  the 
nationals  of  the  Power  exercising  it  enjoyed  no 
commercial  or  other  advantages  save  such  incidental 
ones  as  were  unavoidably  associated  with  the  flag. 
Moreover,  such  incidental  gains  could  be  fairly 
apportioned  by  an  international  policy  which  dis- 
tributed this  work  of  protection  and  control  fairly 
among  the  Governments  of  the  civilized  nations. 
Such  are  the  general  principles  for  the  realization 
of  the  Open  Door.  If  the  civilized  nations 
could  be  brought  to  assent  to  the  early  extension 
of  complete  Free  Trade  and  other  free  economic 
opportunities  in  all  their  home  and  colonial  pos- 
sessions, this  achievement  of  full  economic  inter- 
nationalism would  afford  a  complete  security  for 
peace  among  the  great  States.  But  granting1,  as 
we  must,  that  the  financial  situation  of  all  European 
nations  after  this  war,  to  say  nothing  of  the  political 
antagonisms  and  the  impulses  towards  national 
economic  self-sufficiency,  will  render  any  early 
movement  towards  such  Free  Trade  impossible, 
can  we  not  aim  and  hope  to  secure  such  a  measure 
of  the  Open  Door  as  we  have  here  indicated? 
As  regards  equality  of  opportunity  in  existing 
colonies  and  protectorates,  there  are  two  practical 
obstacles  to  be  overcome.  One  is  the  preferential 
tariffs  of  our  self-governing  dominions,  the  other 
those  of  the  French  colonies  and  protectorates. 
Is  either  obstacle  insuperable?  Though  fiscal 
arrangements  lie  completely  within  the  rights  of 
self-government  enjoyed  by  our  dominions,  the 
closer  imperial  relations  likely  to  result  from  this 
war  ought  to  make  it  an  easy  matter  to  secure  a 


loS  THE   OPEN   DOOR 

withdrawal  of  preferences  primarily  conceived 
as  favours  to  the  Mother  Country,  especially 
when  such  withdrawal  would  open  to  them,  as 
to  us,  certain  liberties  of  trade  with  the  possessions 
of  other  Powers  at  present  withheld. 

The  colonial  system  of  France  is  so  deeply 
rooted  in  Protection  as  to  present  graver  difficulties. 
But  even  they  should  not  be  insuperable  in  view  of 
the  great  commercial  compensations  and  financial 
economies  which  the  establishment  of  an  Open 
Door  would  secure  to  her.  Her  colonial  markets 
form  a  small  proportion  of  her  oversea  trade  ; 
most  of  this  she  would  probably  retain  under  free 
competition  by  motives  of  affection,  habit,  and 
prestige.  By  assenting  to  what  might  appear  some 
present  sacrifice,  she  would  secure  herself  against 
the  positive  loss  of  the  equal  right  of  entrance 
she  has  hitherto  enjoyed  into  the  colonies  of  Great 
Britain,  Germany,  and  Holland,  and  she  would 
avoid  the  expensive  and  perilous  pressures  towards 
a  pushful  colonial  policy  which  her  financiers  and 
commercial  classes  have  constantly  exercised  upon 
her  Government. 

The  size  and  value  of  trade  preferences  in  exist- 
ing colonies  and  protectorates  ought  not  to  be 
able  to  bar  acceptance  of  the  Open  Door  if  the 
essential  importance  of  this  policy  is  made 
apparent.  Nor  should  the  more  definitely  con- 
structive application  of  the  doctrine  to  the  political 
control  and  the  economic  exploitation  of  backward 
countries  not  yet  absorbed  prove  impracticable. 
For,  if  economic  monopolies  and  preferences  are 
once  extracted,  political  imperialism  becomes  an 


THE  OPEN   DOOR  109 

empty  shell,  an  illusion  of  quantitative  power  con- 
ceived in  idle  terms  of  area  and  population.  Even 
if  we  suppose  that  some  of  the  distinctively  political 
and  sentimental  supports  of  colonialism  and  im- 
perialism survive,  they  will  be  greatly  weakened 
in  their  hold  of  foreign  policy,  and,  lacking  the 
pushful  direction  of  the  business  man,  will  be  un- 
likely to  engender  dangerous  disputes.  Once 
convert  the  Open  Door  into  a  genuinely  constructive 
policy  of  international  co-operation,  for  the  peaceful 
development  of  the  undeveloped  resources  of  the 
world,  administered  by  impartial  internationally 
minded  men  in  the  interests  of  the  society  of  nations 
and  with  proper  regard  to  the  claims  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  backward  countries,  a  political  support 
will  have  been  found  for  that  great  and  complex 
but  hitherto  "  ungoverned  "  system  of  economic 
internationalism  which  has  come  into  being  during 
recent  generations.  The  dangerous  collisions 
between  the  forces  of  political  nationalism  and  of 
economic  internationalism  would  thus  be  obviated, 
not  by  denial  of  the  claims  of  the  former  but  by 
the  political  control  of  the  latter. 


THE 

PARALLEL 
OF  THE 
GREAT 
FRENCH  WAR 


THE  PARALLEL  OF  THE  GREAT 
FRENCH  WAR 

By    IRENE    COOPER    WILLIS 

We  are  in  a  war  of  a  peculiar  nature.  ...  It  is  with  an 
armed  doctrine  that  we  are  at  war.  .  .  .  This  new  system  .  .  . 
in  France  cannot  be  rendered  safe  by  any  art  ...  it  must  be 
destroyed  or — it  will  destroy  all  Europe. 

BURKE'S  "  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace,"  1796. 

OVER  a  distance  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  years 
Burke 's  thundering  phrases  travel,  in  striking 
accord  with  the  denunciations  of  the  militarism  of 
the  enemy  of  the  moment.  The  circumstances  of 
the  two  great  wars — the  war  with  revolutionary 
France  and  the  present  war  with  Germany — have 
been  regarded  by  many  people,  the  Prime 
Minister  »  among  them,  as  similar  in  their  legal 
and  moral  aspects.  Then,  as  now,  it  has  been  said, 
the  war  arose  out  of  an  attack  upon  Belgium,  and 
the  challenge  was  accepted  by  the  reluctant  and 
peace-loving  Pitt  exactly  as  it  was  accepted  by 
Mr.  Asquith  and  Sir  Edward  Grey  in  August 
1914.2  We  are  told  that  we  fought  France  then 

1  Mr.  Asquith's  speech  at  Edinburgh,  September  19,  1914. 
3  The  Times'    Literary   Supplement    review    of    "  The    War 
Speeches  of  William  Pitt,"  May  27,  1915. 

8  "» 


H4  THE   PARALLEL  OF 

for  the  rights  of  small  nations  and  for  honour  just 
as  now  we  are  fighting  their  latest  assailant,  Ger- 
many. Now,  as  then,  it  is  said,  European  liberties 
are  being  threatened  by  a  Power  aiming  at  world- 
dominion  and  arrogating  to  herself  the  right  to 
destroy  treaties.  Now  again,  it  is  declared,  almost 
in  Burke's  language,  there  can  be  no  peace 
until  the  militarism  of  the  enemy  is  utterly 
destroyed. 

The  purpose  of  this  chapter  is  not,  however, 
to  show  the  likeness  in  rhetorical  onslaught  upon 
the  enemy  between  the  war  which  we  entered  upon 
in  1793  and  that  which  we  are  engaged  in  to-day. 
Such  evidence  would  be  more  useful  to  a  psycho- 
logical survey  of  the  literature  of  all  wars,  for 
which  survey  English  newspapers  and  pamphlets 
belonging  to  the  three  European  wars  in  which 
England  has  taken  part  in  modern  times  provide 
ample  material.  In  passing,  it  may  be  said  that 
not  one  of  the  philippics  by  which  English 
statesmen  and  English  men  of  letters  are  now 
marshalling  their  countrymen  against  Germany  has 
not  done  equally  good  service  on  previous  occa- 
sions. Only  in  1793  it  was  France  under  whose 
foot  European  liberties  were  being*  crushed,  it 
was  France  against  whose  treason,  blasphemy,  and 
murder  a  holy  war  was  being  waged  ;  and 
in  the  Crimean  War  we  were  fighting  Russia 
for  the  sake  of  civilization  and  Turkey,  in 
espousing  whose  quarrel  it  was  said  that  we  were 
backing  the  cause  of  freedom  and  progress  against 
tyranny  and  despotism. 

But  the  object  of  these  pages  is   to  represent 


THE   GREAT   FRENCH   WAR  115 

the  situation  of  that  far-distant  war  with  revolu- 
tionary France  as  much  as  possible  in  the  light  of 
its  opening  circumstances  and  as  it  was  viewed 
by  men  who,  on  this  question,  differed  from 
Burke. 

To  accept  Burke 's  opinion,  without  reference 
to  other  contemporary  opinions,  is  a  real  return 
to  his  attitude  but  not  a  real  return  to  his  times. 
If  it  is  desirable  to  go  back  to  previous  wars  in 
order  to  fortify  our  conviction  of  England's  con- 
stant intervention  on  the  side  of  righteousness, 
it  is  better  to  go  back  as  completely  as  the  records 
of  history  permit  us  to  go. 

The  average  reference  to  the  war  with  France 
in  1793  is  apt  to  neglect  the  various  stages  of 
its  long-drawn-out  fury.  Its  first  justification  is 
considered  as  identical  with  that  which  at  last 
really  sustained  it,  namely  the  necessity  of  de- 
fending England  and  of  delivering  Europe  from 
the  ambitions  of  an  insatiable  despot.  It  is  for- 
gotten what  share  the  war  itself  had  in  promoting 
that  despotism,  and  to  what  extent  the  European 
Powers  were  responsible  for  its  alliance  with  the 
principles  of  1789. 

Historians  of  all  political  tempers  agree  in  the 
conclusion  that  war  with  the  revolutionary  govern- 
ment of  France,  as  undertaken  by  Austria  and 
Prussia  in  1792,  far  from  weakening  the  influence 
of  the  Jacobins,  on  the  contrary,  did  everything  to 
establish  their  savage  rule  by  enabling  them  to 
identify  their  authority  with  the  defence  of  the 
country  against  invasion.  Whether  or  not  the  worst 
revolutionary  horrors  were  inspired  by  the  panic  of 


ir6  THE   PARALLEL  OF 

invasion  and  under  the  menace  of  the  Duke  of 
Brunswick's  manifesto  and  his  subsequent  march 
upon  Paris,  it  is  certain  that  the  national  peril 
alone  united  the  warring  civil  factions  and  brought 
about  that  Jacobin  supremacy  which  so  hideously 
perverted  the  original  revolutionary  principles. 
Napoleon  himself  hated  the  Jacobins,  and  the 
majority  of  Frenchmen,  who  were  not  Terrorists, 
bent  beneath  the  Terror's  abominable  yoke  for 
the  same  reason  that  the  majority  of  the  people  in 
any  country,  so  insulted,  so  surrounded  by  ad- 
vancing armies,  as  France  was,  abandon  internal 
differences,  however  vital,  and,  with  a  united 
front,  face  the  enemy. 

Most  historians  also  agree  that  the  violation  of 
the  neutrality  of  the  Scheldt  was  not  the  cause  but 
merely  the  occasion  of  England's  entry  into  the 
war.  Neither  in  its  actual  nature  nor  in  its  influence 
upon  governmental  and  popular  opinion  can  it 
be  compared  to  Germany's  recent  violation  of 
Belgium.  It  was  a  misdemeanour,  not  a  crime. 

If  it  was  a  crime,  then  we  ourselves  had  been 
criminally  guilty  a  few  years  previously,  for  in 
1784  we  had  been  quite  willing  that  Austria  should 
commit  the  same  breach  of  treaty  rights  respecting 
the  navigation  of  the  Scheldt  upon  conditions  that 
did  not  include  any  reference  to  Holland's  wishes 
in  the  matter.  Holland  in  1793  did  not  appeal 
for  our  assistance,  though  it  was  reported  that 
prayers  were  offered  in  some  of  her  churches  that 
she  might  be  spared  from  being  plunged  into  war. 
The  letters  from  Lord  Grenville  to  the  British 
Minister  at  The  Hague,  in  December  1792  and 


THE    GREAT  FRENCH   WAR  117 

January  1793,'  show  his  anxiety  lest  the  Dutch 
should  not  interpret  the  French  decree  opening1  the 
Scheldt  as  an  act  of  aggression,  and  his  recog- 
nition that,  until  they  so  interpreted  it,  he  was 
in  an  uncomfortable  position. 

Still  more,  if  it  was  a  crime,  the  Napoleonic  wars 
perpetuated  it,  for  one  of  their  indisputable  results, 
paraded  by  England  with  every  show  of  gratifica- 
tion, was  the  freeing1  of  the  navigation  of  all  the 
great  rivers  of  Europe. 

That  it  was  considered  a  misdemeanour  of  slight 
importance  compared  to  the  other  grounds  we  had 
for  wishing  to  take  part  in  the  war  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  the  French  Ambassador's,  M. 
Chauvelin's,  written  offer  to  Lord  Grenville  to 
negotiate  concerning  the  Scheldt  and  to  give  an 
immediate  pledge  to  be  bound  by  the  Belgians' 
wishes  in  the  matter  after  the  close  of  the  war 
with  Austria  was  ignored  by  the  English  Foreign 
Minister  as  irrelevant. 

Refusal  to  negotiate,  refusal  to  state  clearly  what 
were  the  causes  of  complaint  and  the  satisfaction 
demanded,  before  assuming  that  the  case  of  strict 
necessity  for  war  had  arrived,  were,  as  Fox  and 
the  Opposition  of  that  day  so  often  urged,  the 
strongest  proof  that  the  true  cause  of  the  war  was 
not  the  specific  aggressions  (the  opening  of  the 
Scheldt,  the  decree  of  November  19,  1792),  but 
the  necessity,  already  proclaimed  by  the  conti- 
nental Powers  in  such  violent  language,  of  inter- 
fering1 with  the  internal  government  of  France  and 
of  restoring  the  Bourbon  monarchy. 

1  Auckland  MSS.,  vol.  xxxv,  383,  469. 


u8  THE   PARALLEL  OF 

The  French  had  no  desire  for  war.  That  much 
is  evident  from  the  correspondence  between  Lord 
Grenville  and  M.  Chauvelin,  whose  pacific  inten- 
tions, though  diplomatically  tactless  actions,  led 
him  to  submit  to  innumerable  slights  from  the 
Foreign  Office  rather  than  relinquish  his  endeavours 
to  maintain  peace,  and  is  further  evidenced  by 
Robespierre's  angry  attack  upon  Brissot  for  not 
having1  avoided  war. 

Negotiations  might,  indeed,  have  proved  a 
failure  in  the  furious  state  of  the  times,  amid  the 
indignation  and  hatred  naturally  produced  in 
England  by  the  September  massacres,  and,  above 
all,  by  the  execution  of  Louis  in  January  1793, 
and,  too,  with  that  discordant  Convention  which 
in  Paris,  amid  the  uproar  of  a  Revolution, 
was  issuing  inflated  decrees  and  strutting  with 
pride  at  the  triumph  of  its  armies  over  the 
invader. 

But  to  have  shown  a  disposition  to  negotiate 
would  have  exonerated  England  from  the  charge 
of  being  the  aggressor,  and,  moreover,  a  definite 
statement  of  her  case  would  have  dissociated  her 
from  the  purpose  of  the  allied  kings  and  would 
have  cleared  her  from  the  suspicion  that  she  was 
acting  in  any  degree  on  their  principles. 

Those  purposes,  however,  England  cannot  dis- 
avow, nor  can  she  clear  herself  from  that  suspicion. 
The  reason  does  not  lie  only  in  the  fact  that  when 
the  war  had  begun  her  ministers  openly  availed 
themselves  of  the  arguments  with  which  the  party 
which  Burke  inspired  had,  since  the  outbreak  of 
the  Revolution,  been  inflaming*  people's  minds 


THE   GREAT    FRENCH   WAR  119 

against  France  as  the  centre  of  a  deadly  and 
infectious  anarchy,  but  in  the  explicit  official 
declarations  of  the  Government.  There  is  an 
admission  from  Pitt  himself  (December  9,  1795) 
that  the  war  was  undertaken  to  prevent  the  pro- 
gress of  French  principles  and  to  re-establish  the 
hereditary  monarchy  :  "I  certainly  said  that  the 
war  was  not,  like  others,  occasioned  by  particular 
insult,  or  the  unjust  seizure  of  territory,  or  the 
like,  but  undertaken  to  repel  usurpation,  connected 
with  principles  calculated  to  subvert  all1  govern- 
ment." And  this  was  the  note  of  our  declaration 
after  taking  Toulon  in  November  1793  ;  no  other 
object  of  the  war  other  than  the  restitution  of  the 
French  monarchy  was  then  mentioned. 

What  moved  Pitt  from  his  apparently  inflexible 
determination  to  preserve  England's  neutrality  in 
the  war  between  France  and  the  Allied  Powers 
cannot  be  referred  to  any  single  specific  cause. 
His  own  hatred  of  the  Revolution  had,  it  is  true, 
been  openly  expressed,  but,  in  his  ministerial 
capacity,  he,  at  first,  saw  little  to  fear  and  much 
to  gain  from  France's  collapse  as  a  Great  Power, 
and  this  conviction  was  for  a  time  proof  against 
all  the  appeals  on  behalf  of  the  safety  of  Louis, 
the  danger  to  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  and  the 
moral  considerations  which  Burke  had  for  long 
urged  as  an  overwhelming  case  for  war.  Nor 
was  our  alliance  with  Prussia  ever  mentioned  either 
by  Prussia  or  ourselves  as  a  reason  for  our  inter- 
vention, a  fact  which  is  in  itself  evidence  that 
Austria  and  Prussia  knew  very  well  that  they  were 
the  aggressors  in  1792,  since,  by  the  terms  of 


120  THE   PARALLEL  OF 

that  alliance,  England  was  bound  to  give  help  to 
Prussia  if  the  latter  were  attacked. 

England's  case  against  France  was  essentially 
a  cumulative  one,  and  a  careful  survey  of  all  the 
circumstances  admits  of  very  little  doubt  that  some, 
and  not  unimportant,  determinants  of  Pitt's  chai\ge 
of  attitude  must  be  sought  in  the  state  of  political 
affairs  in  England,  and  in  his  desire  to  divide  the 
Whigs  and,  above  all,  to  break  the  power  of  his 
great  rival,  Charles  James  Fox.  Pitt  was  one 
of  the  most  consummate  opportunists  that  ever 
dominated  English  politics.  He  played  in  1792 
and  1793  a  stupendous  game  and,  for  his 
purposes,  he  enlisted  the  fear  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution which  Burke  was  brandishing'.  Whether 
Pitt  cared  for  power  for  its  own  sake  or  for 
the  sake  of  his  country's  advancement,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  deny  that  in  1792  he  was  more  concerned 
to  compass  the  downfall  of  the  Whigs  and  to 
strengthen  himself  in  office  than  to  avoid  what  he 
then  considered  an  inevitable  war  with  the  French. 
The  Court,  aristocracy,  and  clergy  were  for  war, 
the  country  was  worked  up  to  the  pitch  of  accept- 
ing it,  if  necessary,  and  Pitt's  personal  preference 
for  peace  stood  against  the  interests  of  his  own 
party  and  his  own  position.  War  presented  an 
opportunity  of  consolidating  the  latter  and,  at  the 
same  time,  of  creating  a  division  among  the 
Whigs  whereby  Fox's  power  would  be  permanently 
crippled,  and  Pitt  seized  the  opportunity.  His 
optimism  concerning  the  probable  short  duration 
of  the  war  no  doubt  made  the  venture  seem  less 
tremendous  than  we,  looking  back  over  those 


THE  GREAT   FRENCH   WAR  121 

twenty-two  years  of  almost  incessant  warfare,  can 
pronounce  it  to  be,  and  to  his  patriotic  motives 
the  following  extract  from  The  Times  '  of  Feb- 
ruary 8,  1793,  the  day  before  the  French 
declaration  of  war  reached  England,  supplies  a 
hint  :— 

"  France  is  the  only  Power  whose  maritime 
force  has  hitherto  been  a  balance  to  that  of  Great 
Britain  and  whose  commerce  has  rivalled  ours  in 
the  two  worlds,  whose  intrigues  have  fomented 
and  kept  alive  ruinous  wars  in  India.  Could 
England  succeed  in  destroying  the  naval  strength 
of  her  rival,  could  she  turn  the  tide  of  that  rich 
commerce  which  has  so  often  excited  her  jealousy 
in  favour  of  her  own  country,  could  she  connect 
herself  with  the  French  establishments  in  either 
India,  the  degree  of  commercial  prosperity  to  which 
these  kingdoms  would  then  be  elevated  would 
exceed  all  calculations.  It  would  not  be  the  work 
of  a  few  years  only  but  would  require  ages  for 
France  to  recover  to  the  political  balance  of  Europe 
that  preponderance  which  she  enjoyed  previous  to 
the  Revolution.  Such  is  the  point  of  view  under 
which  Governments  ought  to  consider  the  com- 
mercial interests.  The  indispensable  necessity  of 
extinguishing  the  wide- spreading  fire  whose  devour- 
ing flames  will  sooner  or  later  extend  over  all 
Europe  and  the  well-grounded  confidence  of  dis- 
embarrassing the  commerce  of  Great  Britain  from 
the  impediments  which  have  so  often  clogged  its 
wheels — these  reasons,  added  to  the  prospect  of 

1  The  Times  then,  as  in  1914,  supported  the  war  policy  of  the 
Ministry. 


122  THEj  PARALLEL  OF 

annihilating   the   French  marine,   ought   to   deter- 
mine us  to  immediate  war." 

Burke,  whatever  the  grounds  of  his  fanatical 
devotion  to  aristocracy,  was  whole-hearted  in  his 
hatred  of  the  Revolution  and  in  his  indignation 
at  its  excesses.  Only  his  real  conviction  that  the 
English  Constitution  was  in  danger  from  a  Jacobin 
party  in  England,  bent  upon  the  same  hideous 
drama  as  was  being  enacted  in  Paris,  made  him 
break  with  a  party  and  a  friend  with  whom  he 
had  worked  for  years  in  close  agreement  and  to 
associate  himself  with  Pitt,  whose  political  measures 
it  had  been  that  party's  constant  aim  to  combat. 
His  grounds  for  believing  in  the  existence  of 
revolutionary  conspiracy '  were  no  sounder  than 
those  upon  which  in  the  "  Reflections  upon  the 
French  Revolution "  he  arraigned  the  principles 
of  1789.  The  prophecy  of  that  amazing  pamphlet 
was  indeed  to  a  great  extent  fulfilled,  but  the 
temper  which  it  and  its  author  encouraged,  in 
England  and  on  the  Continent,  had  not  a  little  to 
do  with  the  fulfilment. 

1  The  value  which  ministers  attached  to  this  argument  and, 
at  the  same  time,  the  difficulty  of  getting  enough  evidence  to 
substantiate  it,  is  shown  in  the  following  extract  from  Lord 
Grenville's  letter  to  Lord  Auckland  in  January  1793  :  "We  have 
some  idea  of  laying  before  a  secret  committee  of  the  two 
Houses  (very  small  in  number)  some  particulars  of  the  designs 
which  have  been  in  agitation  here,  enough  to  enable  them, 
without  reporting  particular  facts,  and  still  less  names  or  papers 
(names,  indeed,  they  need  not  know),  to  say  that  they  are  satisfied 
that  such  plans  have  been  in  agitation.  Could  you  supply  us 
with  anything  that  might  tend  to  the  same  object  ?  It  might  be 
very  useful  in  the  view  of  embarking  the  nation  heartily  in  the 
support  of  a  war  if  unavoidable  "  (Auckland  MSS.  xxxv.  381). 


THE   GREAT   FRENCH   WAR  123 

The  "  Reflections,"  it  should  be  remembered, 
were  published  in  the  autumn  of  1790,  in  the 
halcyon  days  of  the  Revolution,  while  the  doings 
of  the  French  Constituent  Assembly  were  still  a 
matter  for  rejoicing  on  the  part  of  the  majority 
of  enlightened  people  in  England,  while  France, 
busy  with  domestic  reform,  desired  above  all  peace 
with  her  neighbours  and  freedom  from  inter- 
ference.1 In  those  days  and  continuously  from 
then,  Burke  preached  his  crusade  against  France, 
in  constant  communication  with  the  continental 
Powers  who  plotted  to  crush  her  liberties. 
"  Diffuse  terror  !  "  Burke  wrote  to  the  emigrant 
princes,  and  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  his 
injunctions  obeyed.  Abroad,  he  conspired  ;  at 
home,  he  incited.  He  was  the  never-failing  in- 
spiration of  British  Tories  in  their  denunciation 
of  the  Revolution  ;  in  and  out  of  Parliament,  in 
and  out  of  season,  he  persisted  in  his  magnificent 
abuse,  and  in  his  determination  to  assist  a  war 
with  France,  "  to  keep  the  French  infection  from 
this  country,  their  principles  from  our  minds,  and 

1  The  first  National  Assembly  of  France  had  an  early  oppor- 
tunity of  proving  its  pacific  foreign  policy  in  the  Nootka  Sound 
crisis  between  England  and  Spain  in  the  autumn  of  1790.  Spain, 
under  the  terms  of  her  alliance  with  France,  claimed  the  latter's 
help  in  the  event  of  war  with  England,  which  seemed  possible. 
The  French  Assembly  unhesitatingly  contradicted  the  views  of  the 
King's  ministers  on  this  point,  and  issued  a  declaration  that  no 
war  could  be  entered  upon  without  its  assent,  at  the  same  time 
repudiating  all  wars  of  conquest  or  aggression,  and,  as  an  earnest 
of  its  pacific  intentions,  it  ordered  the  chained  figures  of  con- 
quered nations  which  ornamented  the  statue  of  Louis  XIV  to  be 
removed. 


124  THE   PARALLEL  OF 

their  daggers  from  our  hearts."  "It  is  with  an 
armed  doctrine  that  we  are  at  war,"  he  wrote  in 
1796.  He  had  himself  helped  to  arm  it,  and  it 
was  the  weight  of  his  armour  which  prolonged 
the  war. 

Peace  might  have  been  secured  in  1793.  The 
professed  objects  of  the  war  were  then  attained. 
Dumourier  had  been  driven  out  of  Holland,  the 
Austrian  Netherlands  were  secure.  The  French 
made  offers  of  peace,  but  we  rejected  them  as 
providing  "  no  indemnity  for  the  past  or  security 
for  the  future."  Obligations  to  Austria  for  her 
assistance  in  saving  Holland  were  mentioned  as 
one  reason  for  continuing  the  war,  and  England 
was  then  pledged,  by  the  repeated  statements  of 
her  ministers  and  by  the  complexity  of  her 
continental  engagements,  to  a  war  for  the  exter- 
mination of  Jacobin  principles,  the  likelihood  of 
the  success  of  which  seemed  as  far  off  as  the 
stars.  Again  it  was  said,  as  it  had  been  said  so 
often  during  the  American  War,  that  if  the  cause 
of  the  enemy  were  to  be  successful,  there  would 
be  an  end  of  all  civilized  government,  and  the 
monarchy  of  England  would  be  trodden  in  the 
dust.  In  vain  Fox  pointed  out  the  hopelessness 
of  such  an  undertaking,  and  its  inconsistency  with 
the  war's  professed  aims.  "  A  war  to  exterminate 
principles,"  he  declared,  "  will  mean  a  war  to 
all  eternity."  '  The  human  mind  is  roused  by 
oppression."  "  Impotent  are  the  men  who  think 
that  opinions  can  be  so  encountered.  There  are 
some  things  which  are  more  successfully  van- 
quished by  neglect."  He  reminded  Pitt  of  Lord 


THE    GREAT   FRENCH   WAR  125 

Chatham's  oath,  that  he  would  die  in  the  last 
breach  before  he  granted  the  independence  of 
America,  and  that  one  of  the  first  of  his  own 
political  acts  had  been  to  sign  the  independence 
which  his  father  had  so  abhorred. 

In  the  autumn  of  1795  the  King's  Speech  to 
Parliament  indicated  for  the  first  time,  though 
vaguely,  a  willingness  to  consider  the  possibility 
of  peace.  The  idea,  until  then  declared  so 
ignominious,  improper,  and  degrading,  of  con- 
sidering the  Government  of  France  as  one  with 
which  any  peaceful  relations  could  possibly  be 
maintained,  was  giving  way,  under  the  pressure 
of  social  distress,  financial  difficulties,  unrest  in 
Ireland,  and  recognition  of  the  unreliability  of  our 
allies,  to  a  longing  throughout  the  country  to  have 
done  with  war.  Curious  inconsistencies  even  then 
marked  the  position  and  the  language  of  ministers. 
Though  Robespierre  had  fallen,  there  was  very 
little  reason  in  Pitt's  main  argument  that  the  exist- 
ing Government  of  France  was  more  capable  than 
any  of  its  predecessors  had  been  of  maintaining 
foreign  relations.  At  least,  its  predecessors  had 
not  been  less  capable.  Prussia's  example  might 
have  reassured  us  on  this  point.  Prussia,  who 
during  1794  had  only  been  induced  to  keep  her 
army  in  the  field  by  the  subsidy  we  gave  her, 
and  even  then  had  done  her  best  to  avoid  any 
fighting,  had  concluded  peace  with  France  six 
months  previously,  and  was  at  that  moment  reap- 
ing the  fruits  of  her  faith  in  France's  stability  of 
government  in  being  able  to  devote  her  attention 
entirely  to  Poland.  From  the  beginning,  France 


126  THE   PARALLEL  OF 

had  been  capable  of  maintaining1  foreign  relations  ; 
there  had  been  no  complaints  from  neutrals  that 
the  Brissot  Government,  or  even  Robespierre  him- 
self, had  failed  in  their  contracted  engagements.1 

Moreover,  the  reason  from  which  ministers 
appeared  to  derive  such  comfort,  that  France 
was  then  in  the  greatest  possible  distress,  and 
her  Government  possibly  on  the  point  of  collapsing 
altogether,  seemed  hardly  the  best  encouragement 
that  security  in  respect  to  treaties  could  at  last 
be  counted  upon. 

Finally,  we  had  let  slip  the  opportunity  of 
making  peace  to  Holland's  advantage  and  security, 
and  had  chosen  to  wait  until  she  was  again  lost, 
though  we  had  her  colonies  in  our  safe  keeping,2 
and  the  aggrandizement  of  France  was  certainly 
less  defeated  than  it  had  ever  been. 3 

1  We  ourselves  were  not  particularly  scrupulous  towards 
neutrals.  We  threatened  Switzerland,  Genoa,  and  Tuscany, 
because  they  had  not  abandoned  a  neutrality  which  we  con- 
sidered criminal.  This  was  our  behaviour  to  small  States  who 
had  not  been  aggressed  upon,  nor  were  inclined  to  be  aggressive, 
in  a  war  which  we  had  entered  upon  in  order  to  protect  the  small 
and  weak,  and  towards  which  we  had  declared  that  we  should 
have  remained  neutral  if  it  had  not  been  for  specific  aggressions. 

3  Including  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  Ceylon,  which  were 
described  in  the  confidential  sketch  of  the  proposed  terms  framed 
by  the  Ministry  for  submission  to  the  King  as  "  the  most  valuable 
of  our  conquests  "  (Dropmore  Papers,  iii.  239-42).  We  gave 
back  the  Cape  to  Holland  in  the  Peace  of  1802,  but  kept  Ceylon. 

3  In  neither  of  these  respects — i.e.  the  freedom  of  Holland  and 
the  check  to  French  aggrandizement — were  the  circumstances  of 
the  Peace  of  1802  any  better.  By  the  Peace  of  Amiens  France 
retained  possession  of  Holland,  Belgium,  the  left  bank  of  the 
Rhine,  Italy,  and  Switzerland.  From  the  commercial  point  of 


THE    GREAT   FRENCH   WAR  127 

Such  were  the  circumstances  which  called  forth 
Burke's  "  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace,"  the  last 
furious  outpouring  of  his  unquenchable  hatred  of 
the  Revolution,  which  had  already  done  so  much 
to  multiply  its  consequences. 

'  What,  you  would  treat  with  regicides  and 
assassins  !  "  cried  Burke,  flinging  his  dying 
strength  into  passionate  denouncement  of  his 
countrymen's  disposition  to  relax  hostility  against 
an  enemy  he  himself  would  have  deified  to  eternity. 
"  This  false  reptile  prudence,"  "  these  oglings  and 
glances  of  tenderness,"  he  said,  ill  became  a 
proud  nation.  "  We  are  not  at  the  end  of  the 
struggle,  nor  near  it.  Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves, 
we  are  at  the  beginnings  of  great  troubles." 

It  is  very  magnificent,  almost  Promethean,  this 
inexorable  determination  of  Burke's  to  be  on  no 
terms  whatever  with  those  of  whose  incurable 
iniquity  he  was  persuaded,  and  to  delude  no  one 
that  he  minimized  the  dangers  and  the  length  of 
the  struggle,  a  determination  growing  stronger  and 
more  embittered  with  the  increasing  evidence  of 
the  insuperableness  of  the  undertaking. 

Burke's  influence  at  this  period,  however,  could 
not  prevent  negotiations,  which  took  place  be- 
latedly, and  failed.  The  failure  arose  out  of  a 
specific  question,  the  restoration  of  the  Austrian 
Netherlands,  concerning  which  we  were  pledged 
to  Austria,  and  does  not  add  to,  or  detract  from,  the 

view  as  well,  the  terms  of  1802  were  most  unfavourable  to  us,  as 
they  left  the  prohibitive  tariff  which  France  had  imposed  against 
us  on  the  Continent  still  in  force.  England's  actual  indemnities 
were  Ceylon  and  Trinidad. 


128  THE   PARALLEL  OF 

arguments  advanced  by  Burke.  These  reach 
beyond  particular  circumstances,  beyond  the  imme- 
diate context  of  the  war  with  revolutionary  France, 
as  also  do  the  answers  which  Charles  James  Fox 
repeatedly  made  to  them. 

"  Shall  we  treat  with  regicides  and  assassins?  " 
said  Fox,  investing  the  question  with  all  the  scorn 
and  horror  of  Burke's  gestures.  "  What  !  Treat 
with  men  whose  hands  are  yet  reeking  with  the 
blood  of  their  sovereign  !  Yes,  assuredly  we  should 
treat  with  them.  With  them,  be  whom  they  may, 
we  ought  and  ultimately  must  treat  who  have  the 
Government  in  their  hands."  "  Where  the  power 
essentially  resides,  thither  we  ought  to  go  for 
peace."  "  If  the  contrary  were  true,  if  we  treat  with 
France  only  when  she  has  a  Government  of  which 
we  approve,  good  God  !  "  said  Fox,  "  we  shall 
fight  eternally."  Were  we,  he  asked,  to  stake 
the  wealth,  the  commerce,  and  the  Constitution  of 
Great  Britain  on  the  probability  of  compelling  the 
French  to  renounce  certain  opinions  for  which  it 
had  already  been  seen  they  were  prepared  to  con- 
tend to  the  last  extremity?  France  should  suffer 
the  penalty  of  her  own  injustice.  Why  were  the 
people  of  England  to  suffer  because  the  people 
of  France  were  unjust?  "  We  would  never  treat 
with  the  present  Government  of  France  "  I  Was 
it  likely  that  the  French  Government  would  ever 
negotiate  for  its  own  destruction?  Or  was  evi- 
dence of  a  more  peaceful  demeanour  to  be  obtained 
in  war?  Could  it  be  said  to  the  enemy,  "  Until 
you  shall  in  war  behave  in  a  peaceable  manner,  we 
will  not  treat  with  you  "?  "  That  two  nations 


THE   GREAT   FRENCH   WAR  129 

should  be  set  on  to  beat  one  another  into  friend- 
ship is  too  abominable,"  said  Fox,  "  even  for  the 
fiction  of  romance,  but  for  a  statesman  to  lay  it 
down  as  a  system  upon  which  he  means  to  act 
is  monstrous."  "  It  is  in  the  nature  of  war  to 
widen,  not  to  approximate." 

"  What  !  you  would  treat  with  tyrants?  Why 
not?  "  answered  Fox.  "  Do  we  not  daily  treat 
with  tyrants?  I  would  have  treated  with  Robes- 
pierre, not  because  I  did  not  think  his  Govern- 
ment the  most  detestable  tyranny  that  ever  existed 
but  because  England  has  nothing  to  do  with  his 
tyranny."  The  question  was,  he  said,  not  what 
degree  of  abhorrence  ought  to  be  felt  of  French 
cruelty  but  what  line  of  conduct  ought  to  be  pur- 
sued consistent  with  British  policy,  which  had 
hitherto  accepted  the  theory  that  every  independent 
nation  had  a  right  to  regulate  its  own  government. 
To  deny  this,  Fox  said,  was  to  act  upon  a  set  of 
most  unprincipled  delicacies,  to  which  no  heed  at 
all  was  paid  when  committing  the  national  honour 
and  safety  into  the  hands  of  allies.  From  minis- 
terial indifference  to  the  conduct  of  the  allies 
towards  Poland,  Fox  said  that  he  could  only  infer 
this  maxim  :  "  Make  peace  with  no  man  of  whose 
good  conduct  you  are  not  satisfied,  but  make  an 
alliance  with  any  man  no  matter  how  profligate 
or  faithless  he  may  be." 

"  Whatever  our  detestation  of  the  guilt  of  foreign 
nations  may  be,  we  are  not  called  upon  to  play 
the  part  of  avengers."  "  Hatred  of  vice  is  no 
just  cause  of  war  between  nations,"  he  argued. 
"If  it  were,  good  God  1  with  which  of  those 

9 


130   PARALLEL  OF  GREAT  FRENCH  WAR 

Powers  with  whom  we  are  now  combined  should 
we  be  at  peace?  Security?  Are  we  never  to  have 
peace  because  that  peace  may  be  insecure?  A 
state  of  peace  immediately  after  a  war  of  such  vio- 
lence must  in  some  respect  be  a  state  of  insecurity. 
We  must  be  satisfied  with  the  best  security  we 
can  get  :  it  will,  at  any  rate,  be  not  less  secure 
than  a  state  of  war.  To  gio  on  fighting1  as  |a 
speculation,  that  perchance  we  may  gain  a  better 
peace  some  time  hence — what  can  this  do  but  add 
to  the  sum  of  human  horrors?  Is  war  a  state 
of  probation?  Is  peace  a  rash  system?  Is  it 
dangerous  for  nations  to  live  in  amity?  " 

These  extracts  from,  and  abridgments  of,  Fox's 
speeches  r  show  the  other  side  of  the  war  against 
the  "  armed  doctrine  "  to  that  to  which  politicians 
and  writers  of  to-day  think  fit  to  call  attention. 
They  show  it  as  no  "  other  side  "  has  ever  again 
been  shown,  for  these  "  bones  of  a  giant,"  as 
Lord  Erskine  called  the  speeches,  edited  'as  they 
were  from  rough  notes,  communicate  the  wisdom 
and  much  of  the  brilliancy  of  expression  of  one 
of  the  greatest  of  English  orators  and  most  honest 
of  English  statesmen. 

Burke  and  Fox  were  once  companions.  The 
French  war  parted  them.  It  is  due  to  their 
memory,  as  well  as  to  the  memory  of  their  times, 
that,  when  the  spirit  of  the  one  is  recalled,  that 
of  the  other  should  not  be  forgotten. 

1  "Speeches  of  C.  J.  Fox."      Edited  by  Wright.     With  a 
Preface  by  Lord  Erskine.     1815. 


WAR 

AND  THE 
WOMAN'S 
MOVEMENT 


WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT 

By  A.  MAUDE  ROYDEN 

AMONG  the  influences  making  for  international 
understanding,  the  Woman's  Movement  has  been 
reckoned  by  its  supporters  to  be  one  of  the 
strongest.  This  was  before  the  war.  The  latest 
International  Congress  held  by  the  Suffrage 
Alliance,  in  Budapest,  1913,  had  not  only  impressed 
all  who  followed  its  deliberations  by  its  numbers, 
enthusiasm,  and  unanimity,  but  also  by  the  intensity 
of  feeling  with  which  many  of  the  most  brilliant 
speakers  sought  to  enlist  the  women  of  the  world 
in  la  guerre  contre  la  guerre. 

It  is  true  that  the  passion  for  peace — the  horror 
of  war — was  expressed  by  continental  and  rarely 
by  British  or  American  delegates.  This  fact  only 
served  to  remind  the  latter  of  the  grim  reality 
of  the  war  problem  in  countries  like  Germany  and 
France,  and  perhaps  to  create  the  feeling  that  our 
own  interest  in  it  might  not  always  be  so  academic 
as  to  most  of  us  it  persisted  in  seeming.  Cer- 
tainly one  of  the  inspiring  motives  of  the  Congress 
was  the  hope  that  a  movement,  international,  like 
that  represented  by  the  Suffrage  Alliance,  which 
brought  together  in  a  common  hope  the  women 


133 


134    WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT 

of  America,  Asia,1  and  Europe,  must  tend  to  create 
the  good  feeling  which  in  its  turn  makes  for  peace. 
Delegates  were  reminded  that  women  know  the 
suffering  of  war  without  its  glory  ;  that  its  horror 
and  its  sacrifices  come  to  them  shorn  of  the 
glamour  with  which  men  have  surrounded  it  ;  that 
it  destroys  all  they  hold  dear  and  all  they  have 
created  ;  that  they  have  nothing  to  gain  by  it  and 
everything  to  lose.  A  speech  made  in  this  sense 
by  the  most  eloquent  woman  there — Mme  Marie 
Ye" rone — brought  her  audience  to  its  feet  in  a  frenzy 
of  enthusiasm,  clapping,  waving,  and  cheering, 
while  those  fortunate  enough  to  be  on  the  plat- 
form precipitated  themselves  upon  the  orator  with 
cries  of  enthusiasm,  and  kissed  her  on  both  cheeks 
with  an  abandon  somewhat  surprising  to  the  more 
stolid  British  delegates.  It  was  evident  that  there 
was  no  doubt  in  the  minds  of  these  enthusiasts  as 
to  the  attitude  of  the  Woman's  Movement  towards 
war. 

Conviction  was  deepened  by  the  great  chapter 
on  "  Women  and  War  "  appearing  in  Olive 
Schreiner's  "  Woman  and  Labour."  Expressing 
with  a  noble  idealism  the  right  attitude  of  women 
towards  war,  Olive  Schreiner  gave  to  an  emotion 
its  philosophy.  Women,  she  said,  were  not  only 
the  worst  sufferers  from  war :  they  were  by  nature 
the  guardians  of  life.  Conservers  of  the  race, 
mothers  of  its  children,  war  must  be  to  them 

1  No  Asiatic  delegates  were  actually  present  at  Budapest,  but 
a  Chinese  Suffrage  Society  applied  for  affiliation,  and  was 
admitted.  The  Chinese  women  sent  a  banner  to  the  Congress 
inscribed,  "  All  of  one  mind,  helping  each  other." 


WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT     135 

the  worst  of  all  catastrophes.  As  a  sculptor  would 
cast  into  the  breach  any  stone  rather  than  that 
which  he  had!  wrought  into  a  statue,  so  women, 
when  the  gulf  opens  between  thei  nations,  would 
cast  in  anything  rather  than  the  men  they  have 
made.  "  No  woman  who  is  a  woman,"  writes 
Mrs.  Schreiner,  "  says  of  a  human  body,  '  It  is 
nothing.'  '  This  phrase,  like  the  whole  chapter 
in  which  it  appears,  became  a  classic  of  the 
Woman's  Movement.  It  was  believed  to  express 
the  true,  the  inevitable  attitude  of  women  as  a 
sex,  whether  in  or  outside  the  progressive  ranks. 
It  was  assumed  to  be  so  "  natural  "  to  them, 
that  to  put  power  into  their  hands  was  to  forge 
a  weapon  against  war.  It  was  not  denied  that 
they  might  feel  that  war  might  in  some  cases 
still  be  a  national  duty  ;  but  it  was  believed  with 
conviction  that  women,  from  their  very  nature, 
would  approach  the  question  with  an  unspeakable 
reluctance,  that  war  would  appear  to  them  in  all 
its  naked  horror,  shorn  of  glory,  that  they  would 
be  free  from  the  "  war  fever  "  to  which  men  so 
easily  fall  victims. 

In  support  of  this  view,  it  is  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  women's  internationalism  has  on  the 
whole  broken  down  less  conspicuously  than  men's, 
two  international  congresses  having  been  held  since 
the  war  began,  and  both  representing  women.  It 
is  probably  also  true  that  among  working  people 
the  desire  for  peace  is  still  stronger  among  the 
women  than  the  men.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
belief  that  women  are  innately  more  pacific  than 
men  has  been  severely  shaken,  if  not  altogether 


136    WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT 

destroyed.  It  is  now  very  evident  that  they  can 
be  as  virulently  militarist,  as  blindly  partisan,  not 
as  the  soldier,  for  in  him  such  qualities  are 
generally  absent,  but  as  the  male  non-combatant, 
for  whom  the  same  cannot  always  be  said.  Among 
women,  as  among  men,  there  are  extremists  for 
war  and  for  peace  ;  pacifists  and  militarists  ; 
women  who  are  as  passionately  convinced  as 
Bernhardi  that  war  is  a  good  thing,  women  who 
accept  it  as  a  terrible  necessity,  women  who 
repudiate  it  altogether.  All  these  views  they 
share  with  men.  There  appears  to  be  no 
cleavage  of  opinion  along  sex  lines.  Nor 
perhaps  should  we  have  expected  it.  History 
shows  no  war  averted  by  the  influence  of 
women  ;  none  against  which  women,  as  women, 
have  worked,  or  organized,  or  offered  more  than 
here  and  there  a  sporadic  protest.  Queens  have 
been  no  more  reluctant  than  kings  to  look  on  the 
dead  bodies  of  men  and  say,  "  It  is  nothing." 
The  fact  that  war  brings  to  women  personally 
no  glory,  but  only  suffering,  is  empty  of  signi- 
ficance ;  they  are  well  accustomed  to  vicarious 
glory  and  well  accustomed  to  suffering.  The 
appeal  to  their  loyalty  comes  with  irresistible  force. 
"  We  cannot  fight,"  they  say  ;  "  let  us  at  least 
be  willing  to  suffer." 

Not  what  is  noble  only,  but  what  is  ignoble 
hi  women,  is  enlisted  easily  in  the  service  of  war. 
The  importance  of  fear  as  a  factor  in  war-making 
cannot  be  overlooked,  and  can  hardly  be  over- 
estimated. Any  politician  can  play  on  panic  when 
he  wishes  to  stampede  a  people  into  war.  The 


WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S   MOVEMENT     137 

fear  of  being  attacked  enables  him  to  blind  them, 
and  makes  them  an  easy  tool  for  a  war  which  is 
really  one  of  aggression.  And  in  the  creation 
of  panic  a  sex  trained  to  timidity  is  hardly  likely 
to  play  a  restraining  part.  Personal  courage  is 
the  one  quality  held  indispensable  in  a  man:  it 
has  not  been  extraordinarily  admired  in  women, 
and  since  fear  is  the  mother  of  cruelty,  it  should 
not  surprise  any  of  us  if  those  who  have  never 
been  expected  to  be  brave  should  sometimes  outdo 
the  men  in  vindictiveness.  That  so  many  women 
remain  untainted  by  fear  should  rather  give  us 
hope.  Nevertheless,  it  is  reasonable  to  remember 
that  so  long  as  fear  plays  a  part  in  the  making 
of  wars,  women  are  hardly  likely  as  a  sex  to 
be  more  uncompromising  in  their  desire  for  peace 
than  men. 

It  should,  therefore,  have  surprised  no  one 
(though,  in  fact,  it  surprised  many  of  us)  that 
women  throughout  Europe  have  accepted  war  as 
an  inevitable  evil,  or  even,  in  the  earnestness  of 
their  loyalty,  as  a  spiritual  good.  Nor  does  their 
attitude  towards  war  in  general,  or  this  war  in 
particular,  prove  those  wrong  who  have  believed 
that  the  Woman's  Movement  is  one  of  the  great 
influences  making  for  peace.  It  is  true  that  its 
effect  will  not  be  so  direct  or  so  obvious  as  had 
been  supposed.  The  mistake  has  been  rather  about 
the  nature  of  its  influence  than  about  its  ultimate 
effect.  Women  may,  when  they  have  the  power, 
no  more  "  vote  against  war  "  than  men  ;  it  remains 
a  fact  that  every  woman  who  is  working  for  the 
advance  of  the  Woman's  Movement  is,  however 


138    WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT 

martial  she  is  herself,  however  profoundly  she  may 
mistake  the  meaning  and  the  foundation  of  her 
work,  working  against  militarism.  She  is  for  ever 
asserting  a  principle  of  which  war  is  a  perpetual 
denial.  One  principle  must,  in  the  end,  destroy 
the  other. 

The  Woman's  Movement  in  all  its  aspects,  but 
especially,  of  course,  in  its  political  one,  is  an 
assertion  of  moral  force  as  the  supreme  govern- 
ing force  in  the  world.  If  its  adherents  are  wrong, 
and  it  is  physical  force  which  is  "  the  ultimate 
appeal,"  then  the  militarist  is  right,  and  the 
physically  weaker  sex,  like  the  little  and  weak 
nation,  has  no  claim  that  may  not  be  set  aside. 
The  weak  have  no  rights  in  a  world  governed 
by  brute  force  ;  they  have  only  privileges,  which 
may  be  granted,  revoked,  or  withheld.  It  ihas 
been  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  Woman's 
Movement  that  it  claims  rights  and  duties,  but 
never  privileges.  By  what  right,  however,  do  those 
who  are  inferior  in  physical  force  ask  to  share, 
equally  with  their  superiors,  in  government,  if 
government  rests  on  physical  force?  Such  a  claim 
could  not  be  entertained.  And  women,  recogniz- 
ing this,  have  rightly  based  their  demand  on  the 
great  principle  that  government  rests  upon  consent, 
and  that  the  use  of  physical  force  is  not  "  the 
ultimate  appeal,"  but  a  confession  of  failure. 

Argument  has  raged  round  this  vital  question, 
and  in  consequence  the  women's  position — and  that 
of  the  opposition  to  it — has  been  again  and  again 
defined.  The  "  physical  force  argument  "  has  been 
put  forward  with  great  effect  and  with  an  'enthu- 


WAR   AND   THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT     139 

siasm  no  Bernhardi  could  exceed  by  notable  Anti- 
Suffragists.1  In  their  writings  and  speeches  the 
conviction  that  women  could  have  no  right  to  self- 
government  while  they  lacked  physical  strength  to 
enforce  it  has  been  expounded  in  terms  which 
almost  grotesquely  resemble  the  expositions  of 
"  Prussianism "  and  the  treatment  of  "  little 
nations  "  which  have  burned  themselves  with 
such  horror  into  our  memories  to-day.  "  The 
State  is  Power,"  says  '  Treitschke  ;  "there  is 
something1  laughable  in  the  idea  of  a  small  State." 
What  power?  Certainly  not  moral  power,  for 
there  may  be  a  greater  moral  power  in  a  little 
State  than  a  big  one.  But  physical  power,  in 
which  the  big  State  must  be  superior.  "  There  is 
something  laughable  "  in  the  idea  that  a  little  State, 
a  people  wanting  in  sheer  force  of  numbers  and 
arms,  should  dream  of  independence,  of  freedom, 
of  developing  along  its  own  lines  its  own  civiliza- 
tion. "  Something  laughable  "  !  There  is  also 
something  obscene  in  such  laughter — something 
unimaginably  brutal.  The  same  brutality  (though 
we  had  not  learned  to  call  it  "  Prussianism  ")  found 
something  laughable  in  the  idea  that  women,  who 
are  inferior  to  men  in  muscle,  should  claim  as 
"  rights  "  what  could  (if  allowed  at  all)  never  be 
more  than  privileges  in  a  world  ruled  by  brute 
force.  Certainly  if  the  world  is  so  ruled  the  claim 
does  become  laughable.  Herein  lay  the  weakness 
of  the  militant  movement,  which  appealed  to  a 
principle  which  the  whole  Woman's  Movement  was 

1  See    especially    "  The    Physical    Force    Argument    against 
Woman's  Suffrage,"  by  A.  McCallum  Scott. 


HO    WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT 

concerned  to  deny.  But  even  here,  regardless  of 
logic — or  perhaps  conscious  of  a  deeper  logic  than 
their  policy  suggested — the  women  who  resorted 
to  violence  frequently  argued  that  they  did  so  only 
to  prove  the  utter  failure  of  violence  used  against 
themselves.  Nor  can  any  misunderstanding1  on 
the  part  of  Suffragists  of  their  own  position  destroy 
the  fact  that  it  rests  upon  a  principle  which 
militarism  denies.  The  strife  between  the  two  is 
internecine.  Militarism  and  the  Woman's  Move- 
ment cannot  exist  together.  Take  a  militarist 
religion  like  that  of  Islam,  and  you  see  women 
reduced  to  the  lowest  level  of  degradation  ;  a 
militarist  legal  code  like  the  Code  Napoleon,  and 
you  have  women  without  human  rights  and  only 
sex  functions — breeders  of  potential  soldiers 
merely  ;  a  militarist  civilization  like  that  of 
Prussia,  and  again  women  without  rights,  almost 
without  privileges,  women  lagging  behind  their 
sisters  in  other  civilizations  otherwise  near  akin 
to  them.  "  You  do  not  know  what  it  is  like  to 
be  a  woman,"  said  a  prominent  German  Suffragist, 
"  in  a  country  which  has  built  its  whole  existence 
on  a  successful  war." 

As  militarism  waxes  or  wanes  so,  in  inverse 
ratio,  does  the  Woman's  Movement.  In  Russia 
— a  race  essentially  pacific,  whatever  criticisms  may 
be  brought  against  its  Government — women  hold 
a  much  higher  position  than  in  Germany.  In 
France,  a  country  once  4<  militarist  "  to  the  core, 
but  now  no  longer  so,  the  Code  Napoleon  remains, 
the  legacy  of  the  arch-militarist,  Napoleon  ;  but 
the  higher  level  of  civilization  reached  to-day 


WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT     141 

reflects  itself  in  the  improved  actual  (as  distinct 
from  the  legal)  position  of  French  women.  In 
Norway  and  Sweden,  countries  so  earnest  in  their 
desire  for  peace  that  their  division  into  two  king- 
doms under  separate  sovereigns  was  actually 
effected  (though  with  some  soreness  and  jealousy) 
without  a  war,  women  have  in  one  case  actually 
achieved  political  freedom  and  in  the  other  are 
upon  the  verge  of  it.  In  America  women  hold 
a  high  position,  and  are  constantly  improving  it. 
In  Great  Britain  both  the  friends  and  the  foes  of 
their  movement  illustrate  the  same  truth. 

There  has  been — perhaps  still  is — a  section  of 
public  opinion  in  this  country  which  believes  that 
the  British  Empire  is  held  together  by  the  sword. 
It  has  even  been  stated  that  India  is  "  held  at  the 
point  of  the  bayonet."  The  fact  that  for  a  long  time 
our  mighty  Empire  was  seldom  without  its  "  little 
wars "  somewhere  along  its  vast  frontiers  gave 
colour  to  a  belief  which  otherwise  seems  actually 
grotesque.  And  it  is  significant  that  the  opponents 
of  Women's  Suffrage  were  largely  drawn  from 
the  ranks  of  this  school  of  imperialist  thought. 
Their  argument  was  developed  along  two  lines  : 
one,  that  women  could  take  no  part  in  the  business 
of  holding  the  Empire  by  the  sword,  the  other 
that  they  could  not  "  think  imperially."  The 
latter  argument  was  frequently  put  forward  by 
women  so  obviously  capable  of  performing1  the 
duty  whose  possibility  (to  other  women?)  they 
earnestly  denied,  as  to  remove  its  sting  and  its 
effect.  The  former  was  the  real  line  of  defence, 
and  as  long  as  this  Jingo  school  of  imperialism 


142    WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT 

remains  so  long  inevitably  must  there  be  an  irre- 
concilable party  of  opposition  to  the  Woman's 
Movement  in  this  country.  Its  wane  and  the  rising 
of  a  nobler  conception  of  Empire  has  coincided 
with  the  gathering  strength  and  power  of  that 
movement.  Both  spring  from  the  same  root — the 
belief  that  government,  whether  of  a  nation  or 
an  Empire,  must  rest  upon  consent,  or  confess  its 
failure  ;  that  moral  force  is  not  nobler  only  but 
stronger  than  coercion  ;  that  an  Empire  "  held  at 
the  point  of  the  bayonet  "  must  fall  to  pieces  at 
the  first  shock  of  danger,  while  one  in  which  there 
is  freedom  for  the  least  as  well  as  the  greatest 
of  its  members  stands  "  whole  as  the  marble, 
founded  as  the  rock."  We  do  not  imagine  to- 
day that  New  Zealand,  with  its  population  of  two 
or  three  millions,  has  less  right  to  the  free  de- 
velopment of  its  own  type  of  civilization  than  we 
with  our  fifty  millions.  We  do  not  call  that  right 
a  "  privilege,"  or  find  "  something  laughable  in 
the  idea  of  a  small  State."  We  do  not  assume 
that  there  are  no  rights  where  there  is  not  power 
to  enforce  them.  On  the  contrary,  we  know  that 
such  rights  can  never  be  violated  except  at  fearful 
cost  to  the  violator.  Not  only  does  the  act  of 
injustice  brutalize  his  conscience,  but  it  vindicates 
again  the  principle  which  must  at  last  react  against 
him.  Nations  have  assumed  the  right  to  act  solely 
in  their  own  immediate  interests  so  far  as  they 
have  the  power  to  do  so  ;  but  no  nation  can  always 
be  the  strongest,  and  the  time  will  come  when 
another  stronger  arises,  or  many  strong  ones  find 
their  common  interest  against  the  violator,  and 


WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT     143 

then  the  old  insistence  that  might  is  right  destroys 
what  it  had  set  up. 

In  a  deeper  sense  also  the  strongi  stand  to  lose 
by  a  violation  of  the  rights  of  the  weak.  Mr. 
Lloyd  George,  in  one  of  the  noblest  passages  of 
a  great  speech  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  spoke 
of  the  debt  owed  by  humanity  to  the  little  nations, 
who  brought  to  its  lips  some  of  the  "  choicest 
wines."  And  we  would  add  that  even  those  little 
nations  who  have  no  specially  glorious  history,  no 
radiant  names,  have  yet  enriched  the  civilization 
of  the  world  by  their  difference  and  variety  of 
type.  To  crush  out  all  those  who  have  the  right 
to  exist  but  not  the  power  to  enforce  that  right 
is  to  commend  to  one's  own  lips,  not  the  "  choice 
wine  "  of  humanity  but 

the  bitter  dregs  of  woe 
Which  ever  from  the  oppressed  to  the  oppressor  flow. 

The  spirit  which  disregards  this  danger  and 
despises  this  loss  to  civilization  is  "  militarism  "  ; 
and  those  who  assert  that  rights  remain  rights 
even  when  they  cannot  be  enforced,  and  that  the 
moral  law  violated  by  physical  violence  vindicates 
itself  in  the  end  by  the  destruction  of  the  destroyer, 
are  fighting  against  militarism,  whether  they  desire 
it  or  not.  The  Woman's  Movement  is  based  on 
belief  in  the  moral  law.  It  is  concerned  to  assert 
the  supremacy  of  moral  force,  and  it  can  show  that 
wherever  the  rights  of  the  weak  are  set  aside  there 
enters  into  the  State  an  element  of  bitterness  and 
hostility  on  the  one  side,  of  brutality  and  moral 


144    WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT 

stupidity  on  the  other,  which  lowers  its  standard 
of  strength  and  effectiveness  as  well  as  of  moral 
nobility. 

It  is  true  that  although  the  principles  of 
militarism  and  feminism  are  fundamentally 
opposed  many  people  do  not  know  it,  and — 
since  we  are  not  a  peculiarly  logical  race — many 
Englishmen  and  women  who  are  genuinely  shocked 
at  Prussianism  as  expounded  by  Bernhardi  and 
applied  to  Belgium,  have  themselves  expatiated 
eloquently  in  the  same  vein  when  the  question  was 
of  classes  or  sexes  instead  of  nations.  There  are 
militarists  who  believe  themselves  feminist,  and 
feminists  who  are  undoubtedly  militarist.  And, 
after  all,  since  we  are  most  of  us  perfectly  aware 
that  "  logic  is  not  a  science  but  a  dodge,"  we 
must  beware  of  dismissing  a  paradox  merely 
because  it  involves  an  apparent  contradiction. 
When,  however,  the  contradiction  is  real — when 
the  opposition  between  two  principles  is  funda- 
mental— the  human  mind  cannot  for  ever  hold  them 
both.  One  must  drive  out  and  destroy  the  other. 
Those  feminists  who  had  most  closely  thought 
out  their  position  had  already  grasped  the  issue. 
When  war  broke  out,  and  ordinary  political  activi- 
ties were  necessarily  suspended,  it  seemed  to  them 
as  inevitable  that  they  should  take  up  the  task  of 
combating  the  real  enemy  of  women  (and  of  civi- 
lization)— militarism — as  it  was  that  they  should 
take  their  share  in  the  relief  of  the  physical 
miseries  and  material  burdens  of  war.  There  was 
no  question  of  opposition  to  the  war  itself  within 
the  great  Suffrage  organizations,  since  the  vast 


WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT     145 

majority  of  their  members  believed  that  war  had 
been  forced  upon  us  and  was,  on  our  part,  a  battle 
against  a  militarist  ideal.  But  there  was  a  deep 
consciousness  that  the  spirit  of  militarism  is  very 
hardly  separated  from  the  fact  of  war,  and  that 
this  spirit  is  immovably  opposed  to  the  feminism 
which  rests  its  whole  claim  on  the  supremacy  of 
spiritual  force.  War,  indeed,  has  its  spiritual 
passion  ;  but  the  fact  that  this  must  find  its  ex- 
pression in  the  crudest  forms  of  violence  tends  to 
exalt  the  latter  at  the  expense  of  the  former. 
Women  can  do  no  greater  service  to  the  world 
than  to  increase  the  healthy  scepticism  of  violence 
as  a  method  of  imposing  ideals  which  the  history 
of  religious  persecution  has  already  created. 

War  may  claim  for  itself  the  power  to  destroy 
and  to  clear  the  ground.  It  can  never  construct 
or  create.  It  is  not  the  means  by  which  ideals 
are  imposed.  There  is  ultimately  no  way  of  com- 
bating a  wrong  idea  but  the  setting  forth  of  a 
right  one.  Whether  they  are  right  who  believe 
that  moral  force  is  "  the  ultimate  appeal  "  against 
which  coercion  is  vain  and  violence  merely  a 
counsel  of  despair,  or  they  who  see  in  physical 
force  the  real  basis  of  government,  let  time  show. 
One  thing  at  least  is  certain — that  as  the  Woman's 
Movement  embodies  the  one  creed  and  "  mili- 
tarism "  the  other,  so  these  two  must  be  in  eternal 
opposition.  The  victory  of  one  is  the  defeat  of 
the  other.  Women,  whatever  other  claim  may  be 
made  for  them,  are  not  equal  to  men  in  their 
capacity  to  use  force  or  their  willingness  to  believe 
in  it.  For  them,  therefore,  to  ask  for  equal  rights 

10 


146    WAR  AND  THE  WOMAN'S  MOVEMENT 

with  men  in  a  world  governed  by  such  force  is 
frivolous.  Their  claim  would  not  be  granted,  and 
if  granted  would  not  be  valid.  Like  the  negro 
vote  in  America,  it  would  be  a  cheat  and  a  delu- 
sion. But  if  moral  power  be  the  true  basis  of 
human  relationship,  then  the  Woman's  Movement 
is  on  a  sure  foundation  and  moves  to  its  inevitable 
triumph.  Its  victory  will  be  an  element  in  the 
making  of  permanent  peace,  not  because  women 
are  less  liable  to  "  war  fever  "  than  men,  or  more 
reluctant  to  pay  the  great  price  of  war,  but  because 
their  claim  and  its  fulfilment  involves  the  assertion 
of  that  which  war  perpetually  denies. 


THE 

ORGANIZATION 
OF  PEACE 


THE   ORGANIZATION    OF   PEACE 

By  H.   N.   BRAILSFORD 

Two  hundred  years  ago  the  Abbe  de  Saint- Pierre 
was  completing  the  publication  of  his  "  Plan  of 
Perpetual  Peace."  With  cynical  punctuality  the 
European  Powers  have  celebrated  each  centenary 
of  its  appearance  with  a  universal  war.  Not  all 
our  humiliation  before  this  spectacle  can  blind  us  to 
the  fact  that  these  centuries  have  brought  with 
them  some  developments  favourable  to  an  enduring 
peace.  The  rise  of  national  States  has  set  limits 
to  the  arbitrary  extension  of  kingdoms  by  conquest, 
marriage,  or  inheritance.  The  growth  of  self- 
government  has  introduced  the  factor  of  the  popular 
will  as  a  barrier  against  artificial  wars  of  intrigue. 
The  development  of  political  morals  has  reached 
a  point  at  which  none  of  the  greater  civilized 
peoples  will  to-day  avow  that  it  is  engaged,  or 
ever  could  engage,  in  a  wantonly  aggressive  war. 
This  last  safeguard  seems  of  little  practical  worth, 
as  we  listen  to  the  arguments  which  even  Socialists 
in  opposite  camps  have  put  forward  to  prove  that 
their  motive  in  supporting  this  war  was  purely 
defensive.  Yet  to  doubt  the  sincerity  of  the  con- 
viction which  has  animated  every  European  army 


ISO      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE 

in  this  war,  that  it  is  fighting  for  national  security, 
would  be  to  despair  of  the  future  of  mankind. 
Fallible  and  liable  to  sophistication  as  this  general 
instinct  against  aggression  is,  it  is  the  only  foun- 
dation on  which  the  reformer  can  build.  On  the 
last  Sunday  of  peace  we  saw  the  German  Socialists 
crowding  to  mass  meetings  to  protest  against  the 
thought  of  war.  A  week  later  the  same  men  in 
uniform  were  marching  dutifully  towards  the 
Belgian  frontier.  They  had  in  the  interval  acquired 
the  conviction  that  the  Fatherland  was  threatened. 
No  scheme,  no  treaty,  no  mechanism,  if  peoples 
desired  war,  would  ever  prevent  it.  But  mechanism 
may  have  a  function,  if  it  can  so  illuminate  the 
attitude  of  parties  to  a  dispute  that  peoples  will  not 
again  err  so  tragically  in  judging1  the  question 
whether  their  rulers  are  embarking  on  aggression. 
Our  difficulty  to-day  is  not  merely  to  prevent 
aggression  :  it  is  first  of  all  to  detect  it. 

If  our  problem  be  to  utilize  this  general  condem- 
nation of  aggression  in  the  abstract,  our  first  step 
must  be  to  discover  some  test  by  which  aggression 
can  be  distinguished  from  defence.  The  crude  test 
"  Which  side  first  declared  war?  "  is  not  decisive. 
Few  neutrals  held  that  the  Boers  were  the  aggres- 
sors in  1899,  though  Mr.  Kruger,  for  strategic 
reasons,  was  the  first  to  declare  war.  The  alter- 
native test,  on  which  German  public  opinion  laid 
stress  in  this  war,  "  Which  side  first  ordered  a 
general  mobilization?  "  is  not  more  conclusive. 
The  belligerent  who  seems  the  more  correct  in 
the  last  stages  of  a  crisis  may  none  the  less 
have  been  on  the  whole  the  more  exacting  in 


THE  ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE      151 

his  diplomacy,  and  may  have  manoeuvred  his  oppo- 
nent into  mobilization  or  a  declaration  of  war. 
More  puzzling  still  is  the  discrepancy  between 
the  legal  and  moral  conceptions  of  aggression. 
The  legal  standpoint  regards  that  Power  as  the 
aggressor  who  attempts  by  force  to  make  a  change 
in  the  status  quo.  The  status  quo  may,  none  the 
less,  be  morally  indefensible.  The  Balkan  States 
were  legally  the  aggressors  in  their  attack  on 
Turkey  in  1912,  but  the  Turkish  oppression  of 
their  kinsmen  was  itself  a  prior  aggression.  In 
its  efforts  to  conserve  peace,  diplomacy  has  always 
tended,  more  or  less  consciously,  to  set  before 
itself  as  its  objective  the  maintenance  of  the  status 
quo.  The  presumption  was  always  against  the 
Power  which  attempted  to  disturb  the  existing 
order.  The  existing  order  might  have  come  about 
as  the  result  of  successful  aggression  in  the  past  ; 
it  might  consecrate  countless  wrongs  in  the  present  ; 
but  a  certain  sanctity  none  the  less  belonged 
to  it,  because  it  was  embodied  in  treaties  and 
recognized  by  Governments.  The  conception  is 
not  wholly  without  value,  and  it  has  been,  like  all 
conservative  institutions,  the  salutary  check  to  rash 
ambitions  and  reckless  disturbance.  It  breaks 
down  whenever  a  nation,  oppressed  by  some 
genuine  grievance,  or  inspired  by  some  proper 
ambition,  feels  that  it  has  at  last  the  means  of 
making  its  claim  good  by  force.  Its  prime  error 
is  that  it  allows  no  place  in  the  common  life  of 
nations  for  radical  changes  and  large  reconstruc- 
tions. A  satisfied  Power,  which  sees  all  its  kinsmen 
free  within  its  own  frontiers,  which  enjoys  full 


152      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   PEACE 

liberty  to  trade,  and  has  in  a  vast  Empire  all  the 
scope  for  economic  expansion  and  emigration  which 
it  can  fairly  desire,  is  always  apt  to  conceive 
of  peace  in  this  conservative  sense.  Desiring  no 
great  changes  in  its  own  interest,  it  regards  nations 
which  do  experience  some  imperative  need  of 
change  as  disturbers  of  the  world's  peace.  The 
consequence  of  a  timid  diplomatic  tradition,  rein- 
forced by  the  conservative  interests  of  the  satisfied 
Powers,  is  that  peace  has  always  seemed  to  be 
a  condition  of  passivity  and  rest.  The  structure 
of  Europe  has  been,  with  rare  exceptions,  so 
inelastic,  so  dangerously  rigid,  that  no  consider- 
able change  could  take  place  without  war  or  the 
imminent  risk  of  war.  Through  decades  or  genera- 
tions of  peace  nations  grow,  their  trade  expands, 
their  problems  multiply  ;  grievances  accumulate, 
and  unsatisfied  ambitions  develop  an  explosive 
violence.  With  the  outbreak  of  war  frontiers 
become  fluid,  and  there  is  no  change  which  vic- 
torious force  cannot  propose  to  itself.  A  whole 
library  of  books  and  pamphlets  written  since  this 
war  began  outlines  the  vast  series  of  changes 
which  public  opinion  in  the  belligerent  countries 
desires,  and  in  vain  desired  before  the  war.  If 
we  were  to  eliminate  from  these  programmes 
all  that  is  extravagant  and  egoistic,  there  would 
remain  salutary  changes  enough  to  transform  the 
map  of  Europe  and  rewrite  its  public  law.  After 
fear,  it  is  the  pressure  of  this  need  of  changes,  un- 
realizable during  peace,  which  forces  war.  Leibnitz 
said  of  the  Abbe  de  Saint- Pierre's  scheme,  based  as 
it  was  on  an  eternal  status  quo,  that  "  perpetual 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   PEACE      153 

peace  "  is  a  motto  appropriate  only  to  a  graveyard. 
The  fundamental  vice  in  the  structure  of  Europe  has 
been  that  it  has  never  known  how  to  provide 
for  large  changes  without  war.  We  must  beware, 
then,  of  seeking  our  criterion  of  aggression  in  a 
disposition  to  disturb  the  established  order  or 
upset  the  status  quo.  If  large  organic  changes 
must  always  be  postponed  till  "  the  next  war,"  there 
can  be  no  enduring  peace.  If  we  dwell  too  simply 
on  the  single  purpose  of  preventing  war,  we  may 
drift  insensibly  into  a  conservative  organization 
which  would  stereotype  abuses,  delay  salutary 
changes,  and  repress  the  most  vital  political  and 
economic  movements  of  our  time.  Our  problem 
must  be,  not  merely  to  prevent  war,  but  to  secure 
such  an  organization  of  Europe  that  large  inter- 
national changes  may  be  compassed  without  war. 
We  have  seen  that  there  exists  at  present  no 
ready-made  standard  which  a  democracy,  informed 
by  goodwill  and  possessed  of  some  measure  of 
power,  can  apply  to  distinguish  an  aggressive  from 
a  defensive  war.  Where,  then,  shall  we  find  our 
criterion?  It  must  lie  in  some  appeal  from  the 
interested  judgment  of  each'  people  in  its  own  cause 
to  the  verdict  of  some  calmer  corporate  conscience, 
which  will  reach  its  conclusions  under  the  guidance 
of  a  view  of  the  common  good.  What  its  organ 
in  each  case  should  be — a  tribunal,  a  mediator, 
or  a  common  council  of  Europe — we  need  not  at 
once  discuss.  The  principle  is  not  new,  but  it 
is  far  from  having  secured  general  assent.  No 
nation  or  Government  entirely  disavows  it,  but 
few  have  yet  given  it  their  firm  adherence.  It 


154      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE 

underlies  the  eagerness,  as  marked  on  the  German 
as  on  the  Allied  side  in  this  war,  to  secure  a  favour- 
able verdict  from  neutrals  on  their  policy.  Every 
nation,  including  Germany,  has  in  the  past  sub- 
mitted grave  disputes  of  a  justiciable  kind  to 
the  arbitration  of  an  international  court,  and  an 
advance  by  which  all  Governments  would  bind 
themselves  to  submit  all  disputes  of  this  limited 
class  to  arbitration  is  not  only  conceivable  but 
probable.  It  is  not  such  disputes,  however,  which 
commonly  lead  to  war,  and  if  they  should  do  so, 
it  would  only  be  because  they  were  seized  upon 
as  a  pretext  which  concealed  a  much  larger  issue. 
No  civilized  State  can  afford  to  make  war  over 
the  interpretation  of  the  wording  of  a  treaty,  over 
a  boundary  dispute,  or  over  questions  of  financial 
compensation  arising  out  of  wrongs  done  to  their 
citizens  abroad.  It  is  when  a  dispute  transcends 
the  scope  of  any  question  which  can  be  submitted 
to  a  merely  legal  settlement  that  the  risk  of  war 
arises,  and  a  reluctance  to  accept  or  even  to  invite 
the  formal  opinion  of  some  neutral  body  makes 
itself  felt.  Recent  experience  is  not  encouraging. 
France  submitted  her  claim  to  a  privileged  position 
in  Morocco  to  a  conference  of  all  the  Powers,  but 
it  cannot  be  said  that  she  was  scrupulous  in 
observing  its  decisions.  Austria,  with  German 
backing,  refused  a  conference  to  sanction  her 
annexation  of  Bosnia.  Sir  Edward  Grey's  proposal 
to  submit  the  dispute  between  Austria  and  Serbia 
to  the  mediation  of  the  fouSr  disinterested  Powers 
was  decisively  rejected  by  the  German  Chancellor, 
and  his  rejection  was  conveyed  in  a  trenchant  form 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   PEACE      155 

which  seemed  to  imply  a  dislike  of  the  principle 
underlying  any  such  procedure.  He  would  hear 
nothing  of  an  "  Areopagus  "  ;  he  would  not 
summon  his  ally  before  a  "  court  "  ;  he  seemed 
to  imply  that  it  was  beneath  the  dignity  of  a 
Great  Power  to  allow  the  interference  of  others, 
even  in  its  external  affairs.  This  attitude  is  no 
new  pose  in  diplomacy.  It  has  been  the  common 
form  of  conservative  statesmen,  and  we  may  find 
an  echo  of  it  in  Canning's  motto  :  "  Every  nation 
for  itself,  and  God  for  us  all."  There  was"  some- 
thing to  be  said  for  this  attitude  in  Canning's 
day.  Europe  remained  through  the  greater  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century  a  collection  of  isolated 
sovereign  States.  Alliances  were  never  permanent, 
and  were  rarely  contracted  save  for  some  limited 
purpose  or  for  a  single  war.  Our  own  generation 
has  witnessed  the  growth  of  the  permanent  alli- 
ance, a  combination  formed  not  merely  for  war  but 
for  the  normal  conduct  of  diplomacy,  and  for  trade 
and  finance  as  well  as  for  war.  "  Each  for  him- 
self "  is  a  motto  which  no  longer  answers  to  the 
facts.  Europe  consists  no  longer  of  six  Great 
Powers  and  some  minor  States,  but  of  two  great 
groups  which  tend  to  draw  the  minor  States  within 
their  orbit.  These  groups  persist  in  peace  no  less 
than  in  war,  and  it  is  easier  to  conceive  of  their 
amalgamation  into  a  single  loosely  knit  league 
than  to  imagine,  their  dissolution  into  their 
elements.  In  the  old  days  it  was  possible  for 
two  Governments  engaged  in  a  dispute  to  reject 
the  meddling  of  other  Governments  as  an  imperti- 
nence. At  the  worst  they  would  fight  out  their 


i$6      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE 

quarrel  between  themselves  ;  the  conflagration 
could  be  "  localized,"  and  with  reasonable  prudence 
no  one  else  need  fear  that  his  house  would  blaze. 
To-day  the  links  are  so  close  that  almost  any  war 
involving  a  Great  Power  must  be  a  universal  war. 
The  affectation  which  resents  the  interference  in 
a  dispute  of  Powers  which  must  presently  be  forced 
by  their  engagements  to  take  part  in  it,  is  an 
unreasoning  arrogance.  The  alternative  to 
Areopagus  is  Armageddon,  and  the  Powers  which 
will  not  meet  in  council  are  only  too  likely  to 
meet  upon  the  battlefield. 

The  new  organization  of  the  impartial  conscience, 
whatever  it  is,  must  be  permanent.  It  is  possible 
that  the  attempt  to  secure  the  reference  of  the 
Bosnian  and  Serbian  questions  to  a  conference 
failed  precisely  because  the  machinery  of  such 
a  conference  had  to  be  improvised.  It  was  possible 
for  a  conservative  Austrian  or  German  statesman 
to  argue  that  some  loss  of  prestige  might  be  in- 
volved in  going  before  a  conference,  because  this 
procedure  is  still  exceptional,  and  because  if  he 
yielded  on  this  occasion,  he  had  no  security  that 
other  Powers  would  do  so  when  his  own  interests 
might  require  this  method  of  settlement.  There 
may  be  wide  differences  of  opinion  as  to  what 
form  the  standing  council  should  take,  and  with 
what  powers  it  should  be  invested.  It  is  probably 
hopeless  to  expect  at  first  an  agreement  in  advance 
from  all  the  Powers  to  abide  by  its  decisions. 
The  tradition  of  the  sovereign  State,  bound  by  no 
laws  but  its  own  supreme  self-interest,  will  die 
hard.  The  minimum  at  which  we  must  aim,  and 


157 

without  which  nothing  appreciable  will  have  been 
won,  is  an  agreement  that  every  Power  will  consent 
to  submit  every  threatening  dispute  to  the  study 
of  a  standing  council,  and  to  refrain  from  war 
until  its  recommendations  have  been  issued.  If 
to  this  were  added  the  much  less  controversial 
agreement  to  refer  the  narrower  category  of 
justiciable  disputes  to  the  arbitration  of  an  inter- 
national legal  tribunal,  we  should  have  gained  the 
objective  criterion  which  we  are  seeking.  The 
Power  which  broke  its  agreement  to  have  recourse 
to  the  standing  council,  or  declared  war  before  its 
recommendations  had  been  issued,  would  stand 
condemned  before  its  own  people,  its  allies,  and  the 
world  of  neutrals.  By  a  single  test  which  would 
admit  of  no  sophistication  or  special  pleading,  it 
would  be  convicted  of  wanton  and  lawless  aggres- 
sion. If  it  should  happen  that  the  council  issued 
recommendations  which  one  party  to  the  dispute 
refused  to  accept,  the  case  would  be  only  a  little 
less  clear.  The  party  which  rejected  its  recom- 
mendations would  be  guilty  of  flagrant  aggression 
if  it  then  went  to  war  to  enforce  its  own  point  of 
view.  The  other  party,  if  it  went  to  war  to  give 
effect  to  demands  which  had  the  sanction  of  the 
council,  would  be  entitled  to  the  sympathy,  if  not 
to  the  active  support,  oi  the  rest  of  the  world. 
No  one  could  say  that  it  was  in  the  wrong  in  press- 
ing its  demands  ;  whether  it  did  right  to  press  a 
just  demand  to  the  point  of  war,  would  depend  on 
the  gravity  and  urgency  of  its  grievance,  and  the 
extent  of  the  risk  which  its  action  might  involve 
to  other  peoples. 


158      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE 

The  Europe  in  which  we  live  is  no  longer  a 
collection  of  isolated  States  ;  it  is  a  community 
knit  by  permanent  alliances.  A  scheme  of  this 
kind  must  adapt  itself  to  the  existing  structure 
of  the  Continent.  On  the  eve  of  this  war,  Sir 
Edward  Grey  put  forward  what  he  described  as 
a  "Utopian"  proposal  (White  Paper  No.  101). 
It  was  that  each  of  the  two  allied  groups  should 
guarantee  the  other  against  the  aggression  of  any 
or  all  of  its  members.  A  verbal  disavowal  of 
aggressive  intentions  would  add  little  to  the  real 
guarantees  of  peace,  even  if  it  were  enshrined  in 
such  a  formula  as  was  proposed  in  Lord  Haldane's 
negotiations  of  1912.  This  scheme  for  arbitration 
or  conciliation  gives  us  for  the  first  time  an 
objective  test  of  aggression,  and  enables  us  by 
means  of  it  to  limit  the  scope  of  alliances  to  an 
honestly  defensive  purpose.  Nearly  all  alliances 
are  in  form  defensive  only,  but  the  vagueness 
of  the  distinction  between  aggression  and  defence 
renders  this  restriction  of  small  value  in  practice. 
If  this  scheme  were  honestly  adopted,  it  would 
involve  the  insertion  in  all  treaties  of  alliance 
(if  the  system  of  alliances  survives)  of  a  clause 
which  would  free  the  contracting  parties  from 
any  obligation  to  give  aid  to  a  partner  who 
had  refused  to  submit  his  case  to  arbitration  or  to 
the  Council  of  Conciliation,  or  gone  to  war  before 
the  period  of  delay  expired.  To  this  condition 
it  seems  to  me  indispensable  to  add  a  clause  can- 
celling the  obligations  of  the  alliance  if  either 
ally  should  become  involved  in  hostilities  by  reason 
of  his  own  refusal  to  accept  the  recommendations 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   PEACE      159 

of  the  Council.  The  advantages  gained  by  this 
plan  are,  therefore,  (i)  the  gain  of  a  period 
of  delay  in  which  public  opinion,  if  it  be 
pacific,  can  act  ;  (2)  the  registry  in  each 
dispute  of  an  impartial  recommendation  for  its 
settlement  ;  (3)  the  setting  up  of  a  clear 
objective  standard,  by  which  the  citizens  of  a 
would-be  belligerent  Power  might  judge  whether 
its  Government  were  acting  aggressively  ;  (4)  the 
isolation  of  an  aggressor,  through  the  abandonment 
of  his  cause  by  his  habitual  allies.  This  last 
provision,  as  Europe  is  constituted  to-day,  would 
generally  be  decisive.  It  would  mean  that  the 
aggressor  would  fight  alone,  while  his  victim  could 
invoke  the  aid  of  allies.  The  agreement  for  delay, 
arbitration,  and  conciliation  would  be  still  more 
impressive  if  it  further  required  all  the  signatory 
Powers  to  concert  military  and  other  measures 
against  any  Power  which  broke  it.1  It  is  not, 
however,  proposed  in  this  minimum  scheme  that 
any  Power  should  bind  itself  in  advance  to  accept 
or  enforce  the  recommendations  of  the  Council 
of  Conciliation,  or  that  it  should  sign  away  its 
abstract  right  to  go  to  war  if  the  process  of 
conciliation  has  failed  to  bring  about  a  settlement 
which  it  can  accept. 

The  real  pivot  of  this  moderate  plan  for  the 
prevention  of  war  is  the  period  of  delay,  usually 
defined  as  one  year  from  the  date  of  the  submission 

1  In  describing  the  moderate  minimum  I  have  followed  broadly 
a  scheme  of  which  a  persuasive  account  will  be  found  in  Mr. 
Lowes  Dickinson's  "After  the  War"  (Fifield,  6d). 


i6o      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   PEACE 

of  a  dispute  to  the  council.  No  proposal  which 
promises  so  much  can  be  free  from  difficulties. 
The  first  obvious  difficulty,  for  which  provision 
must  be  made,  is  that  some  disputes  arise  from 
continuous  injuries,  so  serious  that  they  must  be 
suspended  while  they  are  examined  by  a  Court 
of  Arbitration  or  a  Council  of  Conciliation.  No 
Power  will  wait  a  year  for  justice,  if  the  offender 
continues  to  repeat  his  aggression  or  completes 
a  wrong  whose  beginning  was  already  an  offence. 
The  Court  or  Council  must  be  always  in  being 
to  issue  a  preliminary  injunction,  in  urgent  cases, 
before  the  question  of  principle  is  debated. 

Another  difficulty  turns  on  the  change  which 
might  take  place  in  the  relative  military  prepared- 
ness of  the  disputants  during  the  year  of  delay. 
An  aggressive  Power  is  commonly  a  well-armed 
Power.  If  it  meditates  a  brutal  use  of  force, 
it  will  usually  have  accumulated  armaments  and 
provided  itself  with  allies.  To  ask  it  to  wait  for 
a  year  is  in  effect  to  deprive  it  of  a  great  part 
of  this  advantage.  Let  us  c'herish  no  illusions  about 
the  easy  realization  of  a  scheme  which  to  men  of 
good  will  seems  so  eminently  reasonable.  The 
year  of  delay  would  frustrate  the  calculations  by 
which  militarist  cliques  and  general  staffs  time 
the  outbreak  of  disputes  for  the  moment  when 
their  own  strength  is  at  its  maximum  and  that 
of  their  adversary  at  its  minimum.  This  handi- 
cap on  military  preparedness  will  be  accepted  only 
when  every  Power  has  consciously  resolved  to  debar 
itself  for  the  future  from  the  speculative  use  of 
such  advantages.  Moderate  as  the  scheme  is,  it 


THE    ORGANIZATION   OF   PEACE      161 

exacts  a  complete  breach  with  the  tradition  of 
militarism.  The  proposal  originated  in  the 
Anglo-American  Treaty,  and  it  would  work 
smoothly  across  the  Atlantic  between  two  cousinly 
Powers  which  have  full  confidence  in  each  other. 
In  a  European  dispute,  we  must  prepare  for  some 
embarrassing  possibilities.  A  year  would  enable 
us  to  improvise  an  army,  while  our  opponent  would 
increase  his  fleet.  The  unready  Power  would  set 
to  work  to  accumulate  munitions  and  to  build 
strategic  railways.  If  it  went  still  further,  and 
started  mobilization,  the  strain  would  become 
intense.  American  advocates  of  the  scheme  have 
laid  stress  on  the  psychological  advantages  of 
delay.  Nerves  would  be  calmed  ;  the  press  would 
grow  weary  of  a  protracted  excitement,  and  war- 
like passions  would  be  extinguished  in  boredom. 
AVould  that  happen  on  the  Continent?  Each  day 
might  bring  its  tale  of  the  enemy's  new  gun,  his 
giant  airship,  his  invincible  submarine,  his  hastily 
laid  railways,  his  intrigues  to  gain  a  Balkan  ally, 
and  finally  his  stealthy  mobilization.  If,  more- 
over, a  legal  state  of  war  were  declared  (or  in 
our  country  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Act  put 
in  force),  there  would  be  an  end  of  free  discussion 
and  a  stifling  of  public  opinion.  It  is  clear  that 
the  amount  and  kind  of  preparation  which  is  allow- 
able must  be  carefully  defined  in  advance.  Tb 
allow  preparation  would  indirectly  discourage  heavy 
armaments  in  time  of  pe^ace,  and  give  an  advantage 
to  the  unready,  which  is  often,  but  not  always, 
the  more  innocent  and  pacific  Power.  It  would, 
however,  place  a  heavy  strain  on  the  forbearance 

ii 


162      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE 

of  the  better  prepared  Power,  usually  the  Power 
which  is  the  more  likely  to  defy  the  scheme,  or 
even  to  reject  it  in  advance.  I  confess  that  I 
do  not  myself  clearly  see  the  solution  of  this 
dilemma.  The  wiser  course  would  be,  I  think, 
to  forbid  any  new  preparations  in  excess  of  those 
already  publicly  sanctioned  by  the  Budgets  of  the 
Powers  involved,  and  to  forbid  either  mobilization 
or  the  declaration  of  a  state  of  war.  These 
prohibitions,  if  they  did  not  extend  to  the  whole 
year,  might  at  least  cover  nine  months  of  it.  In 
calling  attention  to  this  difficulty,  I  am  far  from 
suggesting  that  it  should  deter  us.  We  start  from 
the  belief  that  until  war  actually  breaks  out  the 
party  of  good  will  is  normally  the  stronger.  It 
fails  partly  because  it  never  has  time,  partly 
because  it  rarely  knows  the  facts,  and  partly 
because  it  becomes  unpopular  by  attempting  to 
argue  that  the  enemy  is  not  wholly  in  the  wrong. 
Give  it  a  simple  case  to  urge,  with  "  Keep  your 
Treaty  and  wait  a  year  "  for  its  single  watchword, 
and  it  must  carry  the  day,  unless  the  conscience 
of  its  country  be  wholly  perverted  or  crushed. 
To  attempt  a  full  discussion  of  the  composition 
and  procedure  of  the  Council  of  Conciliation  lies 
beyond  the  scope  of  this  essay.  These  questions 
have  been  studied  in  minute  detail  by  the  Fabian 
Society,  and  its  draft  treaty  for  the  establishment 
of  a  Council  is  full  of  good  suggestions.1  It  is 
important  to  decide  whether  we  aim  at  a  European 
League  or  at  a  world-organization.  There  is 
1  See  the  Supplements  to  the  New  Statesman  of  July  10  and  17, 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   PEACE      163 

much  to  be  said  for  the  former  ideal.  Europe 
makes  some  approach  to  a  common  level  of  cul- 
ture and  political  development.  It  is  a  unity  which 
has  a  meaning  for  the  imagination  and  the 
emotions.  To  go  far  beyond  the  real  ties  of 
fraternity  would  be  to  make  the  League  a  formal 
and  mechanical  organization.  No  political  unity  will 
ever  be  real  which  is  not  felt.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  spite  of  the  Monroe  doctrine,  we  should  all  wish 
to  include  the  United  States,  and  Japan  is  already 
within  our  political  system.  Most  of  the  Great 
Powers  are,  moreover,  Wo  rid- Powers,  and  the 
friction  between  them  arises  often  from  extra- 
European  questions.  The  Fabian  Society's  solution 
of  a  World-Council,  which  might  on  certain  ques- 
tions divide  into  European  and  American  chambers, 
sitting  separately,  is  ingenious  and  promising. 
With  it  we  may  agree  that  the  ancient  fiction  of 
the  equality  of  sovereign  States  must  ibe  abandoned. 
The  Council  must  be  free  to  reach  its  decisions  by  a 
majority  vote,  and  the  voting  power  of  each  State 
must  bear  some  relation  to  its  real  importance 
in  the  world.  This  detail  leads  us  rapidly  to  a 
thorny  question  of  principle.  Is  our  Council  to 
be  a  diplomatic  congress,  composed  of  delegates 
instructed  by  their  Governments? 

On  our  answer  to  this  question  depends  our 
ability  to  move  away  in  this  advance  from 
the  traditional  methods  of  diplomacy.  Those 
methods  were  well  adapted  to  their  end,  the 
furtherance  of  the  restricted  interests  of  the 
national  State.  The  success  of  our  Council 
would  depend,  however,  on  its  ability  to  face  each 


164      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE 

question  on  its  merits,  and  to  keep  in  view  the 
general  good  of  the  European  Commonweal.  If 
a  dispute  arises,  say  between  Serbia  and  Bulgaria, 
we  shall  get  no  objective  decision  on  its  merits 
if  the  Russian  and  Austrian  members  of  the  Council 
view  it  primarily  from  the  standpoint  of  Russian 
and  Austrian  interests,  while  the  British,  French, 
and  German  members  feel  bound  to  adopt  the 
standpoint  of  their  Allies.  We  desire  the  nearest 
approach  to  abstract  justice,  consistent  with  the 
general  interests  of  the  whole  European  com- 
munity. The  diplomatic  tradition  starts  from  the 
maxim,  Do  at  des.  A  Council  composed  of 
diplomatists  would  hardly  differ  from  such  gather- 
ings as  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  where  everything 
went  by  barter.  There  would  be  no  voting  on 
merits,  but  rather  an  elaborate  traffic  in  votes. 
Incorruptible  himself,  the  typical  diplomatist  has 
been  trained  to  think  primarily  of  his  own  country's 
interest.  In  the  end,  before  "  justice  "  could  be 
done  to  Serbia  and  Bulgaria,  their  patrons  and 
friends  would  be  offering  "  compensations  "  all 
round  to  secure  support,  and  the  question  at  stake 
would  turn  on  the  solution  of  a  dozen  outstanding 
issues  unconnected  with  the  Balkans.  It  is 
because  statesmen  know  so  well  by  what  methods 
congresses  are  "  worked  "  that  they  are  reluctant 
to  submit  to  their  decisions.  A  Council  of  diplo- 
matists would  fall  at  once  into  fixed  groups,  and 
a  solution  would  be  reached  by  the  process  of 
seducing  some  representative  of  a  group  from 
his  habitual  allegiance  by  the  offer:  of  considera- 
tions valuable  to  his  country.  An  austere  and 


THE  ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE      165 

high-principled  Foreign  Minister  might  set  his  face 
against  such  methods  and  impress  his  views  upon 
his  delegate,  but  if  it  were  suspected  that  even 
one  or  two  votes  in  a  close  contest  had  been 
turned  by  these  practices,  the  recommendations 
of  the  Council  would1  have  lost  all  moral  value. 
We  may  fairly  invite  a  Power  to  submit  its  case 
to  an  impartial  Council,  capable  of  deciding  a 
question  on  its  merits.  But  no  Power  would 
submit  to  be  outvoted  if  it  knew  that  the  majority 
against  it  had  been  composed  of  rival  Powers, 
each  of  which  voted  with  its  eyes  fixed  on  its 
own  irrelevant  ends. 

The  middle  course  of  nominating  men  of  in- 
dividual distinction  for  a  fixed  term,  who  would 
not  be  expected  to  take  their  instructions  from 
their  respective  Foreign  Ministers,  meets  this 
difficulty  in  some  measure.  Everything  would  turn 
on  the  character  of  individuals.  Some  would  be 
firm,  impartial,  and  independent,  and  would  resist 
improper  pressure.  Others  would  be  weak  and 
pliable.  Some  Governments  would  send  the  ideal 
man,  and  trust  him.  Others  would  instinctively 
choose  a  man  on  whom  they  could  rely  to  obey 
instructions,  and  the  process  of  barter  would  go 
on  behind  his  back.  A  Council  so  comprised  would 
be  a  mixed  body,  but  the  average  result  of  its 
work  rnight  be  good.  These  nominees,  however, 
would  occupy  a  delicate  position,  and  it  could 
never  be  certainly  said  that  their  decision  repre- 
sented either  the  official  view  of  Governments  or 
the  free  view  of  peoples.  It  would  be  at  the  best 
the  verdict  of  a  very  distinguished  and  venerable 


166      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   PEACE 

body  of  typical  individuals.  That  might  serve  our 
purpose  admirably,  if  we  aim  chiefly  at  a  com- 
mittee of  conciliation  for  disputes.  It  would  not 
serve  so  well  if  we  wish  our  Council  to  act  also  as 
a  legislative  body.  A  Legislature  must  represent 
either  governments  or  peoples. 

There  is  another  possible  solution,  bolder  and 
more  difficult  than  either  of  the  others.  It  is 
that  we  should  attempt  to  create  a  Council  which 
will  represent,  not  the  Governments  but  the 
peoples  of  Europe — an  assembly  which  would  be, 
in  fact,  a  European  Parliament.  It  might  be 
elected  on  a  basis  of  population,  by  the  popular 
chamber  of  each  national  Parliament,  on  a  system 
of  proportional  representation.  If  the  British 
representation  were  fixed,  for  example,  at  ten 
members,  these  ten  would  reflect  the  divisions  of 
opinion  prevailing  in  the  House  of  Commons.  It 
would  consist  always  of  some  Liberals,  some  Con- 
servatives, and  at  least  one  Socialist  and  one  Irish 
Nationalist.  On  some  questions  it  might  be 
unanimous,  but  it  would  not  always  speak  or  vote 
as  a  united  national  delegation.  In  a  Council 
so  composed,  natural  groupings,  based  on  opinion, 
would  be  formed  across  the  lines  of  racial  and 
national  cleavage.  The  Council  would  not 
inevitably  fall  into  a  German-Austrian  group 
struggling  against  a  Franco-Russo-British  group 
for  the  balancing  votes  of  the  smaller  States. 
While  a  section,  perhaps  the  majority,  of  each 
national  group  might  follow  on  most  questions 
a  purely  national  policy,  there  would!  be,  as  time 
went  on,  some  formation  of  true  international 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE      167 

parties.  The  Socialists  would  be  the  first  to  come 
together.  A  Progressive  party  would  inevitably 
be  formed  for  the  extension  and  development  of 
the  federal  idea.  A  Conservative  party  would  be 
created  as  naturally  to  uphold  the  sovereign  rights 
of  the  national  State.  Another  natural  line  of 
division  would  be  that  of  the  Free  Trade  and  Open 
Door  tendency  against  the  Protectionist  and  mono- 
polist tendency.  Even  if  we  suppose  that  the 
powers  of  the  Council  would  at  first  be  very 
limited,  that  its  work  would  be  watched  with 
intense  jealousy  by  the  official  custodians  of 
national  sovereignty,  and  that  it  could  do  little 
more  than  draft  proposals  and  recommendations, 
which  the  sovereign  national  Governments  would 
sometimes  consider  and  often  ignore,  there  would 
grow  from  the  public  debates  of  such  a  Council 
a  real  sense  that  Europe  is  a  united  society  with 
problems,  interests,  and  opinions  which  bind  us 
all  across  our  frontiers.  The  true  solution  of 
international  strife  is  not  to  kill  it  by  the  boredom 
of  a  dull  and  secret  procedure.  It  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  elevate  it  to  an  open,  honourable,  and 
profoundly  interesting  discussion  of  opinions. 
Instead  of  dreading  international  "  disputes  "  as 
mere  curses  and  dangers,  we  must  learn  to  regard 
them  as  we  think  of  our  differences  in  domestic 
politics,  as  the  very  springs  of  movement  and 
change,  the  proof  that  we  are  alive  and  are 
adapting  ourselves  to  our  environment. 

An  elected  Council  would  offer  the  natural 
solution  of  the  main  difficulty  which  confronts  any 
advance  towards  international  organization.  So 


168      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE 

long  as  congresses  and  councils  represent  only 
so  many  solid,  impenetrable,  isolated  national 
States,  so  long  as  they  reach;  their  decisions  by 
bargain  and1  barter  behind  the  scenes,  no  Power 
will  bow  naturally  or  easily  to  their  decisions,  and 
certainly  no  Power  will  bind  itself  in  advance  to 
accept  them.  We  must  go  behind  "  Powers  " — 
the  very  word  suggests  nothing  but  parks  of 
artillery,  squadrons  of  battleships,  and  massed 
legions — to  the  populations  which  are  capable  of 
thought  on  other  than  nationalist  lines.  If  a  vote 
against  Great  Britain  meant  merely  that  Germany 
and  Austria  had  "  squared  "  the  Scandinavian  dele- 
gates and  "  compensated  "  the  Balkan  members, 
so  as  to  create  a  factitious  coalition  against  us, 
we  might  refuse  to  obey  it,  and  rightly  so.  But  if 
it  meant  that  our  advanced  policy  had  been  for 
the  moment  negatived  by  the  caution  of  a  mixed 
majority — a  French  Conservative  voting  with  a 
German  Clerical  and  a  Russian  Slavophil — should 
we  feel  the  same  sense  of  humiliation  and  injustice? 
If  it  meant  that  our  conservatism  on  some  issue 
had  been  overborne  by  the  united  Socialist  vote, 
backed  by  French  Radicals  and  the  advanced  parties 
of  Norway  and  Holland,  would  we  bow  to  the 
majority  much  more  reluctantly  than  our  Conserva- 
tives do  when  a  Liberal  majority  is  returned  at 
home? 

Another  consideration  tends  to  favour  the 
creation  of  an  elected  Council.  It  is  that  problems 
of  peace  and  war  tend  to  hinge  ever  less  pn 
"  disputes  "  between  isolated  Powers,  and  ever 
more  on  larger  questions  of  world  policy — colonial 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE      169 

trade,  the  Open  Door,  the  free  use  of  straits  and 
ports,  the  "  freedom  of  the  seas,"  and  the  immense 
issue  whether  backward  but  potentially  wealthy 
regions  are  to  be  developed  economically  by  the 
system  of  partition,  monopoly,  and  concessions, 
or  by  a  regulated  international  partnership,  or  by 
free  competition.  These  are  matters  which  call 
rather  for  a  decision  of  principle  than  for  the 
process  of  conciliation  appropriate  to  narrower 
"disputes."  We  want  for  these  purposes  a 
standing  Legislature,  which  can  amend  its  own  work 
from  time  to  time,  deal  with  details  as  they  arise, 
and  appoint  its  standing  commissions  to  act 
administratively.  The  chief  of  its  standing!  com- 
missions would  be  the  Council  of  Conciliation, 
which  might  sit  in  private,  to  handle  the  delicate 
business  of  adjusting  disputes  between  single 
Powers.  Others  might  take  over  each  department 
of  legislation  and  administration  as  it  became  ripe 
for  international  control,  until  as  the  decades  and 
generations  passed,  a  loosely  knit  consultative 
Council  might  evolve  into  a  federal  Parliament. 
If  this  proposal  be  too  bold  a  starting-point,  we 
might  urge  that  while  Governments  set  up  some 
Council  of  delegates  or  nominees  more  in  keeping 
with  the  present  tradition  of  inter-State  intercourse, 
to  serve  as  the  responsible  and  authoritative  organ 
of  a  nascent  European  Commonweal,  there  should 
also  be  formed,  beside  it,  and  even  below  it,  an 
elected  consultative  chamber,  free  to  debate  in 
public,  to  suggest  new  policies  and  urgent  changes, 
and  to  send  up  its  recommendations  to  the  supreme 
Council  and  the  national  Governments.  It  is  not 


170     THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE 

probable  that  Diplomatists  will  ever  so  far  depart 
from  the  traditions  of  their  craft  as  to  propose 
the  creation  of  an  elected  Council.  It  will  come 
into  being  when  Parliaments  themselves  take  the 
initiative.  No  mechanism  will  ever  give  us  per- 
petual peace.  We  shall  have  peace  when  Europe 
has  developed  an  international  mind.  The  prime 
value  of  an  elected  Council  would  be  that  it  would 
give  to  this  mind  a  corporate  personality  and  an 
articulate  voice. 

We  must  in  all  candour  inquire,  before  we  close 
this  brief  study,  how  far  the  moderate  minimum 
of  a  Council  of  Conciliation,  fortified  only  by  an 
agreement  to  allow  a  year's  delay  before  the  out- 
break of  war,  would  answer  the  requirement  we  have 
laid  down.  Would  it  give  such  a  presumption  that 
great  and  necessary  changes  may  be  effected  with- 
out war,  that  Governments  would  refrain  from  the 
competitive  armaments  and  the  partisan  alliances 
which  are  to-day  the  means  of  moulding  the  world 
to  the  will  of  the  strong?  Formally  it  offers  no 
such  security,  for  it  is  not  proposed  that  Govern- 
ments should  bind  themselves  in  advance  to  accept 
the  recommendations  of  the  Council,  nor  that 
neutrals  should  constitute  themselves  its  executive 
arm.  The  consequences  of  these  limitations  would 
be  serious.  In  the  first  place,  the  temptation  to 
arm,  though  it  might  be  weakened,  would  not  be 
removed.  Secondly,  it  would  be  difficult  to  argue 
that  alliances  had  lost  their  purpose,  and  there 
would  still  tend  to  be  an  inevitable  grouping  of 
Powers  with  a  grievance  or  an  ambition  against 
those  which  opposed  its  redress  or  satisfaction. 


The  understanding  that  alliances  became  invalid  if 
the  agreement  for  a  delay  to  allow  of  arbitration 
or  conciliation  were  broken  would,  indeed,  tend  to 
make  them  less  absolute  and  less  menacing.  But 
in  some  degree  we  should  still  live  in  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  armed  peace  and  the  balance  of 
power.  In  the  third'  place,  the  Council,  moving 
warily  amid  these  dangers,  and  conscious  that  it 
possessed  no  means  of  overcoming  the  self-will 
of  the  disputants,  would  be  chary  of  making  recom- 
mendations which  might  be  disregarded.  Its 
recommendations  would  at  first  be  timid  ;  they 
would  bear  an  undesirable  relation  to  the  balance 
of  military  power,  and  would  fall  far  below  the 
requirements  of  ideal  justice.  Would  it  dare  to 
touch  the  really  dangerous  grievances,  the  wrongs 
which  at  a  perceptible  rate  accumulate  the  explo- 
sives of  war?  It  could  not,  for  example,  safely 
propose  for  many  years  after  this  war  to  upset 
any  of  the  arrangements  of  the  final  settlement 
favourable  to  the  victors,  however  inequitable  they 
might  be.  It  would  probably  shrink  from  recom- 
mending a  Great  Power  to  carry  out  any  difficult 
act  of  reparation  or  surrender,  though  it  would 
be  bound  for  its  own  credit  to  suggest  some  solu- 
tion which  would  ease  the  tension.  If  it  dared  not, 
for  example,  propose  a  surrender  of  territory,  it 
might  at  least  suggest  the  concession  of  autonomy 
to  its  inhabitants.  These  limitations  are  not  an 
objection  to  the  scheme,  but  they  are  a  warning 
to  us  that  the  power  of  any  mechanism  to  bring 
us  within  reach  of  objective  justice,  and  to  prepare 
large  changes  without  recourse  to  arms,  will  grow 


172      THE  ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE 

only  as  we  develop  the  international  mind  and 
equip  it  with  the  organs  of  an  international 
Government.1 

By  what  means  can  this  evolution  be  hastened? 
It  will,  no  doubt,  be  proposed  that  some  League 
of  Peace  be  formed  with  a  definite  military  basis, 
which  may  back  the  claims  of  justice  by  an  ever- 
ready  force.  Just  in  so  far  as  such  a  league  is 
partial,  it  must  fail  in  its  purpose.  The  Powers 
which  do  not  enter  it  will  combine  against  it, 
and  they  will  have  the  sympathy  and  support  of 
such  minor  States  as  dread  the  power  of  its 
members.  A  partial  league  which  proposed  to  use 
force  to  back  its  ideals  would  soon  reproduce 
the  old  divisions  of  Europe  in  a  new  form,  and 
when  it  talked  of  enforcing  peace  and  justice  it 
would  seem  to  those  outside  it  that  a  facade  of 
hypocrisy  had  been  erected  to  mask  the  old  fortress 
of  the  balance  of  power.  The  proverbial  ques- 
tion would  arise,  Quis  custodiet  ipsos  custodes? 
A,  B,  C,  and  D  form  such  a  coalition,  while  E  and 
F  remain  outside  it.  The  day  comes — for  all  of  us 
may  err — when  D  contemplates  or  perpetrates  a 
wrong  against  some  weaker  State.  Will  A,  B,  and 
C  then  proceed  to  coerce  D?  D,  in  such  an  emer- 
gency, would  instantly  ally  himself  with  E  and  F, 
and  the  choice  for  A,  B,  and  C  would  either  be 
to  renew  the  general  war,  or  to  abandon  the  moral 

1  The  general  case  for  an  advance  to  a  federal  organization 
and  for  a  scheme  of  conciliation,  stiffened  by  an  authority 
which  can  impose  decisions,  is  stated  with  compelling  force  in 
Mr.  J.  A.  Hobson's  "  Towards  International  Government " 
(George  Allen  &  Unwin,  2s.  6d.). 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE      173 

basis  of  their  league.  It  would  be  wiser  to  leave 
our  rudimentary  organ  of  justice  without  organized 
military  support  than  to  create  behind  it  a  league 
which  involved  the  exclusion  of  any  of  the  greater 
European  Powers. 

The  true  answer  to  these  foreboding  riddles 
is  that  every  fresh  advance  in  international 
organization,  and  especially  the  creation  of 
economic  ties,  will  help  to  make  good  the  inevitable 
defects  in  any  rudimentary  mechanism  of  concilia- 
tion. The  scheme  of  conciliation  must  not  be 
allowed  to  stand  for  long  as  the  sole  link  between 
rival  and  isolated  Powers.  If  the  league  which 
has  accepted  this  principle  could  be  evolved  into 
a  commonwealth,  which  conferred  great  and  evident 
benefits  upon  its  members,  a  new  motive  would 
be  forged  which  might  be  used  to  secure  obedi- 
ence for  its  decisions.  By  force  we  shall  never 
constitute  a  true  league,  and  any  voluntary  associa- 
tion of  nations  must  admit  the  right  to  secede. 
If  membership  conferred  certain  measurable 
advantages,  secession  from  it  would  be  difficult, 
and  the  league,  as  it  grew  strong,  would  be  able 
to  lay  down  the  principle  that  any  failure  to 
observe  the  decisions  of  its  council  involved  seces- 
sion and  the  forfeiture  of  its  privileges.1  \What 
these  privileges  might  be,  it  is  easy  to  suggest 
in  outline.  The  ideal  arrangement  would  be  a 
league  which  translated  its  political  unity  into  a 
system  of  Free  Trade  confined  to  its  own  members, 

1  I  have  attempted  a  sketch  of  a  league  with  such  an  economic 
basis  in  the  new  chapters  of  the  third  edition  of  "The  War 
of  Steel  and  Gold  "  (Bell,  as.). 


174      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   PEACE 

while  it  maintained  an  appreciable  but  not  neces- 
sarily prohibitive  tariff  against  the  imports  of 
outsiders.  If  any  disloyalty  to  its  political  con- 
stitution automatically  entailed  secession,  and 
exposed  the  seceder  to  the  higher  tariff,  its 
decisions  would  have  a  powerful  sanction  behind 
them.  This  ideal  may  be  remote,  but  some  ap- 
proach to  it  may  be  possible.  If  the  league 
could  not  at  first  construct  a  true  Customs 
Union,  insuring  to  its  members  full  Free 
Trade  within  all  its  territories,  we  might  begin 
with  an  agreement  to  accord  to  all  its  members  the 
benefit  of  a  "  most-favoured-nation  "  clause  ;  this 
at  least  would  put  an  end  to  tariff  wars  within 
it.  We  might  go  on  to  arrange  for  the  abolition 
of  differential  tariffs  in  non-self-governing  colonies  ; 
a  reform  which  would  go  far  to  remove  any  motive 
to  the  forcible  acquisition  of  colonies,  for  if  I 
may  freely  trade  with  my  neighbour's  colony,  I 
shall  not  desire  to  conquer  it.  We  might  next 
arrange  that  members  of  the  league  should 
accord  to  each  other  such  freedom  of  access  to 
their  money  markets  as  allies  commonly  concede 
to  each  other,  and  perhaps  a  guaranteed  propor- 
tional share  for  the  capital  of  members  in  big  inter- 
national undertakings  in  Africa,  Turkey,  and  China. 
Only  by  some  arrangement  of  this  kind  shall 
we  be  able  to  turn  the  flank  of  the  capitalistic 
Imperialism  which  fosters  Militarism  for  its  own 
economic  ends. 

It  has  often  been  proposed  that  a  trade  boycott 
or  complete  non-intercourse  should  take  the  place 
of  war  as  a  means  of  putting  pressure  on  an 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE      175 

aggressive  Power.  Such  methods,  effective  in 
themselves,  could  with  difficulty  be  organized  or 
enforced  by  States  which  in  normal  times  were 
bound  by  no  close  economic  ties.  To  apply  them 
would  require  an  effort  so  violent,  and  would  seem 
to  the  offender  an  outrage  so  extreme,  that  they 
might  rather  provoke  war  than  prevent  it.  A 
league  accustomed  in  times  of  peace  to  differentiate 
in  its  tariffs  between  members  and  non-members, 
and  to  make  economic  advantage  the  token  of 
its  political  unity,  might  use  this  method  smoothly 
yet  with  deadly  effect.  It  is  an  axiom  that  the 
closer  our  international  organization  becomes,  the 
more  firmly  and  the  more  boldly  will  it  venture  to 
use  its  authority.1 

It  would  be  idle  to  attempt  to  sketch  a  detailed 
programme  for  the  future,  or  to  speculate  on  the 
pace  of  our  advance.  We  do  not  know  in  what 
mood  Europe  will  look  around  it  and  face  its 
problems  when  the  havoc  of  this  war  is  ended. 
It  may  be  so  wearied,  so  anaemic,  so  riven  by 
hatreds,  so  robbed  of  hope  or  energy,  that  any 
forward  step,  however  timid,  will  demand  our 
utmost  efforts,  and  our  strength  will  be  spent  rather 

1  These  proposals  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  the 
suggestion  which  is  now  being  put  forward  in  all  the  allied 
countries,  that  the  Allies  should,  after  this  war,  combine  to 
exclude  or  penalize  German  trade.  That  suggestion  is  merely 
punitive  and  vindictive,  or  else  it  is  a  sentimental  disguise  for  a 
crude  trading  egoism.  Apart  from  economic  objections,  no 
plan  would  so  surely  perpetuate  hate.  The  suggestion  in  these 
pages  is  that  the  economic  weapon  should  be  used  impartially, 
not  to  satisfy  resentment  for  the  past,  but  to  ensure  peace  for 
the  future. 


176      THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  PEACE 

in  resisting  a  desperate  recoil  into  barbarism  and 
reaction.  It  is  also  conceivable  that  our  experi- 
ences may  beget  a  revolutionary  temper,  which  will 
first  in  certain  countries  break  down  the  internal 
obstacles  to  change,  and  then  sweep  forward  with 
a  new  impetus  towards  a  bold  international  recon- 
struction and  a  sharp  breach  with  the  intolerable 
past.  At  the  worst  we  shall  have  before  us  at  least 
a  ten  years'  truce  of  exhaustion  in  which  to  raise 
our  barrier  against  the  next  outbreak  of  folly. 
The  first  test  of  the  resolve  of  a  new  Europe  for 
enduring  peace  will  be  the  ability  of  its  peoples 
to  impose  on  their  Governments  a  preliminary 
agreement  to  accord  a  year's  delay  for  conciliation 
before  they  fight.  The  Government  which  concedes 
so  much  will  have  turned  its  back  upon  the  past 
and  broken  the  spell  of  centuries  dominated  by 
force.  Without  this  indispensable  foundation  we 
shall  build  in  vain.  On  it  a  new  Europe,  inspired 
by  so  great  an  act  of  faith,  might  with  confidence 
erect  by  gradual  stages  and  logical  extensions  the 
firm  structure  of  a  federal  league. 


DEMOCRACY 
AND 

PUBLICITY  IN 
FOREIGN  AFFAIRS 


12  m 


DEMOCRACY   AND    PUBLICITY    IN 
FOREIGN   AFFAIRS 

By  PHILIP  SNOWDEN,  M.P. 

THE  Great  War  will  have  been  fought  in  vain  if 
it  has  not  taught  the  working  classes  of  Europe 
the  paramount  necessity  of  publicity  in  foreign 
affairs.  When  the  multi-coloured  books  contain- 
ing such  notes  and  dispatches  as  it  has  suited  the 
several  Governments  to  give  to  the  world  have 
been  exhausted  in  the  effort  to  apportion  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  war,  the  conviction  must  be 
left  upon  the  mind  of  every  impartial  person  that 
a  system  of  diplomacy  carried  on  in  secret  is  an 
anachronism  in  an  age  when  democratic  govern- 
ment is,  in  every  country  in  Europe,  acknowledged, 
more  or  less,  to  be  a  sound  principle  for  the  control 
of  domestic  politics. 

Unless  it  can  be  shown  that  there  is  something 
in  the  nature  of  foreign  affairs  which  distinguishes 
them  so  radically  from  domestic  politics  that  the 
accepted  principles  of  national  government  are 
quite  inapplicable  to  the  control  of  foreign  policy, 
then  the  present  system  of  conducting  foreign 
affairs  stands  condemned.  But  an  examination 
of  the  arguments  advanced  against  the  popular 


i8o         DEMOCRACY   AND   PUBLICITY 

control  of  foreign  policy  reveals  the  fact  that  they 
are  precisely  the  same  as  those  which  have  been 
invariably  employed  against  every  demand  for  the 
extension  of  political  liberty  and  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  the  people. 

The  case  for  the  popular  control  of  domestic 
policy  can  be  stated  in  a  simple  but  sufficient 
phrase.  It  is  that  every  citizen  of  a  State  has  a 
right  to  a  voice  in  determining  the  extent  of  and 
the  form  in  which  the  State  shall  interfere  with 
his  personal  liberty.  In  these  days  the  formula  of 
democracy  cannot  be  fully  expressed  in  the  old 
phrase,  "  Taxation  without  representation  is 
tyranny."  Every  year  the  State  interferes  more 
and  more  with  the  life  of  the  individual.  It 
regulates  his  conditions  of  work,  his  business,  his 
wages,  his  housing,  his  education,  and  disposes  of 
an  ever-increasing  proportion  of  his  personal 
property.  Nobody  publicly  suggests  nowadays  that 
we  should  revert  to  the  old  political  system  under 
which  the  disposal  and  direction  of  the  lives  and 
liberties  of  the  people  was  in  the  hands  of  a  king 
or  aristocracy.  Because  the  acts  of  Government 
and  Parliament  affect  the  condition  of  the  people 
it  is  an  uncontroverted  doctrine  that  the  people 
should  control  the  political  affairs  of  the  nation. 

With  the  object-lesson  of  this  war  before  the 
eyes  of  the  nation  the  concern  of  the  people  in 
foreign  affairs  needs  neither  emphasis  nor  expo- 
sition. We  see  the  lives  of  the  people  sacrificed 
by  hundreds  of  thousands  ;  taxation  is  being  im- 
posed upon  all  classes  to  an  extent  which  seems 
likely  to  be  a  heavy,  if  not  intolerable,  burden 


IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  181 

upon  them  ;  we  see,  perhaps  for  our  lifetime,  the 
high  hopes  we  had  entertained  of  a  great  social 
reconstruction  dissipated  ;  we  see  the  wealth  and 
energy  which  should  have  been  devoted  to  dealing 
with  the  problems  of  child  life,  of  education,  of 
public  health,  of  unemployment,  of  housing',  and 
with  all  those  industrial  and  social  evils  in  our 
land,  devoted  to  the  destruction  of  life  and  treasure 
on  a  scale  so  vast  that  the  imagination  reels  before 
the  spectacle.  This  surely  is  the  concern  of  the 
masses  of  the  people. 

The  war  is  the  outcome  of  foreign  policy.  We 
are  not  concerned  here  to  apportion  the  blame  or 
the  responsibility.  The  war  is  the  failure  of 
diplomacy.  It  may  be  the  fault  of  German, 
or  French,  or  Russian,  or  Austrian,  or  British 
diplomacy,  or  of  all  in  some  measure.  The  system 
of  secret  diplomacy,  the  divorcement  of  democracy 
from  the  control  of  foreign  affairs,  is  common  to 
all  European  countries.  The  war  is  indisputable 
proof  that  this  system  of  diplomacy  has  failed  to 
maintain  peace.  It  may,  of  course,  be  argued 
that  any  system  of  diplomacy  or  of  the  conduct  of 
foreign  affairs  would  not  prevent  war.  But  the 
first  answer  to  that  assertion  is  that  this  system 
has  failed,  and  that  the  result  of  that  failure  is 
a  calamity  so  colossal  that  no  other  system  of 
diplomacy  could  be  more  disastrous. 

Two  conclusions,  therefore,  must  be  accepted — 
namely,  that  the  results  of  foreign  policy  are  of  the 
most  serious  concern  to  the  people  of  every  country, 
and  that  whether  it  be  possible  or  not  to  devise 
some  system  of  foreign  policy  and  of  the  conduct 


182         DEMOCRACY   AND   PUBLICITY 

of  foreign  affairs  which  will  prevent  or  lessen  the 
disastrous  results  of  international  policy  with  which 
we  are  now  painfully  familiar,  the  present  method 
is  a  failure.  The  failure  of  the  present  system 
of  diplomacy  justifies  us  in  not  only  considering, 
but  in  demanding,  seme  change  in  the  control  of 
foreign  affairs. 

The  conduct  of  foreign  affairs,  in  all  European 
countries,  has,  up  to  the  present,  been  in  the  hands 
of  a  small  body  of  diplomatists,  rulers,  and 
ministers.  Neither  Parliament  nor  the  people 
know  what  is  going  on  in  the  secret  chambers  of 
diplomacy.  The  nations  are  committed  to  the 
most  serious  obligations  without  their  knowledge. 
The  whole  history  of  foreign  affairs  consists  of 
policies  adopted,  treaties  arranged,  and  wars 
undertaken  without  the  previous  knowledge  of  the 
people  so  vitally  concerned.  In  1911  we  were 
on  the  brink  of  war  with  Germany  over  the 
Morocco  question.  If  war  had  actually  broken 
out,  there  were  not  at  that  time  a  hundred  people 
in  England  who  would  have  known  what  it  was 
about.  That  crisis  was  due  to  the  intrigues  of 
a  number  of  European  Governments,  pressed  on 
by  financial  interests,  to  get  free  hands  for  the 
exploitation  of  certain  parts  of  Northern  Africa. 
Treaties  were  concluded,  the  terms  of  which  were 
published  ;  but  now  we  know  that  secret  treaties 
were  in  existence  which  committed  some  of  the 
signatories  to  an  aggressive  policy  directly  opposed 
to  that  to  which  they  had  openly  pledged  their 
word. 

In   1912  the  most  important  negotiations  were 


IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  183 

going  on  between  this  country  and  Germany,  with 
the  object  of  improving  the  relations  between  the 
two  countries.  Of  these  negotiations  the  British 
Parliament  and  the  British  nation  were  kept  in 
ignorance,  and  only  bit  by  bit,  under  the  strongest 
pressure,  have  the  people  been  partially  informed, 
three  years  later,  of  what  took  place.  When,  in 
March  1915,  the  Prime  Minister  was  asked  in  the 
House  of  Commons  to  put  the  country  in  posses- 
sion of  the  full  facts,  he  replied  that  "  no  public 
advantage  would  be  served  by  the  publication  of 
the  notes  and  dispatches  "  bearing  on  these  vital 
matters. 

Such  a  method  of  conducting  the  foreign  affairs 
of  a  country  is  pure  autocracy.  It  places  the 
destinies  of  a  nation,  the  lives  of  the  people,  the 
hopes  and  welfare  of  the  democracy  entirely  at 
the  mercy  of  a  small  handful  of  persons.  These 
persons  have  the  power  to  thwart  all  the  aims  of 
the  democracy  in  the  sphere  of  domestic  reform. 
So  long  as  such  a  power  is  in  the  hands  of  a  few 
persons  democratic  government  is  a  mockery,  and 
the  working  classes  are  the  playthings  of  rulers 
and  diplomatists.  It  is  a  monstrous  thing  that  a 
score  of  European  diplomatists  and  rulers  should 
have  the  power  to  involve  practically  the  whole 
of  Europe  in  a  devastating  war.  By  such  a 
system  the  nations  of  Europe  are  committed  in 
secret  to  tremendous  responsibilities,  and  when  this 
system  of  diplomacy  has  brought  the  nations  to 
the  verge  of  war,  the  people  are  induced  to  support 
a  war  they  have  never  wanted,  and  which  they 
have  not  expected,  by  appeals  to  their  fear,  their 


1 84         DEMOCRACY   AND  PUBLICITY 

party  loyalty,  and  their  national  patriotism.  Demo- 
cratic government  to  be  a  reality  must  give  to  the 
people  control  over  such  matters  as  treaty  obliga- 
tions with  foreign  countries,  and  Parliament  must 
be  trusted  with  the  final  decision  on  such  matters 
and  with  the  supreme  question  of  peace  or  war. 

The  objections  which  are  brought  against  the 
demand  for  publicity  in  foreign  affairs  are  pre- 
cisely those  which  have  done  duty  in  every  past 
campaign  against  the  extension  of  the  political 
franchise.  It  is  said  that  the  people  do  not  under- 
stand foreign  affairs  ;  that  it  is  essential  that  such 
matters  must  be  conducted  by  men  of  special 
knowledge  and  training.  But  experience  of  demo- 
cratic control  of  home  affairs  has  falsified  all  the 
arguments  and  fears  of  the  opponents  of  a  popular 
franchise.  It  is  not,  of  course,  maintained  that 
the  democracy  has  risen  to  the  full  height  of  its 
responsibilities  and  opportunities.  It  has  made 
many  mistakes.  It  has  often  disappointed  the 
hopes  of  ardent  reformers.  But  with  all  its  fail- 
ings and  weaknesses  democratic  control  of  home 
affairs  has  been  a  vast  improvement,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  national  welfare,  on  the  former 
system  of  aristocratic  government.  The  people 
are  slowly  learning  to  understand  and  to  use  their 
power,  and  every  decade  shows  an  advance  in 
the  intelligence  of  the  democratic  vote. 

We  are  justified  in  feeling  a  very  considerable 
amount  of  confidence  that  the  system  of  demo- 
cratic control  which  has  for  two  generations  been 
the  method  for  conducting  our  national  affairs 
would,  if  applied  to  the  control  of  foreign  affairs, 


IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  185 

be  equally  satisfactory.  If  the  extension  of  the 
franchise  has  not  altogether  changed  the  character 
of  parliamentary  representation,  it  has  changed 
the  atmosphere  and  outlook  of  Parliament.  In 
regard  to  home  affairs  the  rights  and  wrongs  of 
democracy  have  become  the  main  subject-matter 
of  political  contention  and  of  legislative  effort. 
The  point  of  view  of  the  working  classes  receives 
a  consideration  in  Parliament  now  which  was  not 
possible  when  the  landed  aristocracy  shared  with 
the  plutocracy  the  control  of  national  affairs. 

But  as  the  control  of  foreign  affairs  is  still  in 
the  hands  of  the  same  class  which  formerly 
monopolized  all  political1  power,  the  conduct  of 
foreign  affairs  and  the  personnel  of  the  Diplo- 
matic Service  have  remained  unchanged,  and  are 
still  the  preserve  of  the  landed  and  privileged 
classes.  The  natural  result  of  that  system  is  that 
these  affairs  have  not  been  conducted  in  the 
democratic  interests,  but  in  the  interests  of  the 
same  class  whose  evil  control  of  home  affairs  gave 
rise  to  the  great  popular  demands  for  the  demo- 
cratic control  of  domestic  politics.  The  popular 
control  of  home  affairs  has  brought  the  democratic 
outlook  and  sympathy  into  legislation  ;  and,  in 
like  manner,  the  popular  control  of  foreign  affairs 
would  change  the  character  of  diplomacy.  It 
would  be  recognized  that  the  people  were  the  con- 
trolling authority,  and  the  administrators  would 
naturally  try  to  represent  the  people's  point  of 
view,  instead  of  that  of  the  financial  and  com- 
mercial interests.  If  it  were  known  by  our  states- 
men and  diplomatists  that  the  results  of  their  diplo- 


i86         DEMOCRACY   AND   PUBLICITY 

matic  efforts  were  dependent  for  confirmation  upon 
the  approval  of  the  popular  representatives,  they 
would  strive  to  achieve  such  results  as  would  be 
likely  to  secure  that  approval.  In  other  words, 
diplomacy,  knowing  that  democracy  was  its  master, 
would  endeavour  to  serve  the  interests  of 
democracy. 

The  question  now  arises  for  consideration 
whether  democratic  control  of  foreign  affairs  would 
insist  upon  a  change,  and  whether  it  would 
earnestly  pursue  a  policy  for  the  establishment 
and  maintenance  of  peaceful  relations  between 
nations.  It  would  not  be  wise  to  dogmatize  on 
this  topic,  but  it  is  permissible  to  submit  evidence 
which  appears  to  give  very  strong  support  to  the 
belief  that  democratic  control  of  foreign  affairs 
would  tend  towards  the  abolition  of  war.  The 
breakdown  of  international  socialism  on  the  declara- 
tion of  war  was  a  grievous  disappointment  to  those 
who  had  built  high  hopes  on  the  growing  soli- 
darity of  the  workers  of  the  world.  But  a  calm 
and  fair  consideration  of  all  the  circumstances 
leaves  one  with  little  reason  to  feel  despondent, 
or  to  lose  faith  in  internationalism.  Great  move- 
ments grow  slowly.  National  prejudices  are  hard 
to  kill.  No  great  project  ever  succeeds  at  first. 
It  is  only  after  many  failures  that  triumph  comes. 
The  international  working-class  movement  was  sub- 
jected to  the  greatest  possible  strain  before  it 
had  grown  strong  enough  to  bear  the  test.  But 
the  true  facts  are  now  becoming  known,  and  one 
may  almost  say  that  the  matter  which  should  cause 
surprise  is  not  the  failure  of  international  socialism 


IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  187 

to  prevent  the  war,  but  that  in  all  the  circumstances 
so  much  of  the  international  spirit  survived  the 
terrible  ordeal. 

The  workers  in  all  countries  hate  war.  That 
they  support  wars  is  no  disproof  of  that  statement. 
The  amazing  absence  of  anything  of  "the  nature 
of  jingoism  among  the  people  of  this  country 
during  this  war,  the  universal  desire  to  see  an  end 
of  the  war  on  such  conditions  as  will  ensure  a  per- 
manent peace,  show  that  the  spirit  of  the  democracy 
is  not  military  but  pacific.  The  democracy  never 
support  a  war  except  for  one  or  both  of  two 
reasons,  namely,  through  fear,  or  to  remove  or 
avenge  some  real  or  alleged  injustice.  Since 
September  28,  1864,  when  the  first  International 
was  formed  in  London,  one  of  the  primary  objects 
of  every  international  association  of  working  men 
has  been  the  promotion  of  international  peace. 
The  workers  may  be  trusted  to  use  their  power 
and  influence  to  prevent  war  because  they  know 
something  of  the  terrible  cost  of  war.  They  know 
they  gain  nothing  by  war.  They  realize  that  the 
common  interests  of  the  workers  can  be  served 
only  in  the  ways  of  peace.  They  know  well  that 
war  and  militarism  are  the  instruments  of  capi- 
talism and  exploitation.  They  know  that  war  is  the 
greatest  enemy  of  social  progress,  for  it  divides 
the  working  classes  of  the  different  countries  and 
distracts  their  attention  from  the  prosecution  of 
what  the  continental  workers  call  the  "  class 
struggle  " — that  is,  the  battle  for  the  economic 
emancipation  of  the  wage-workers. 

The   working   classes    object   to   war   for   other 


188         DEMOCRACY   AND   PUBLICITY 

reasons.  They  know  from  experience  that  a  time 
of  war  is  a  period  when  the  liberties  they  have 
won  in  times  of  peace  are  easily  filched  away. 
They  know  that  the  cost  of  war,  wherever  the 
taxes  may  be  directly  laid,  falls  with  the  heaviest 
weight  upon  them.  They  know  that  bad  trade 
and  hard  times  follow  war,  and  that  though  indi- 
viduals may  gain  from  war,  they  as  a  class,  and 
the  nation  as  a  whole,  are  always  the  losers  by  it. 
The  working  classes,  by  instinct  and  by  knowledge, 
are  peaceful  and  opposed  to  war,  and  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  their  influence  on 
foreign  policy,  so  far  as  they  might  be  able  to 
exercise  it,  would  be  all  in  the  direction  of  pro- 
moting peace  and  the  establishment  of  good  rela- 
tions between  all  nations. 

Though  the  instincts  of  the  people  are  towards 
peace,  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that,  if  there 
were  publicity  in  the  conduct  of  foreign  affairs, 
there  would  be  a  greater  likelihood  of  averting 
wars.  But  there  are  grounds  for  a  reasonable 
supposition  that  such  a  result  would  ensue.  Let 
us  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  secrecy  in  diplomacy 
has  not  prevented  war.  On  the  contrary,  the 
policies  which  the  rulers  and  diplomatists  have 
pursued  in  recent  years  have  brought  about  the 
Great  War.  If  we  agree  with  the  popular  view 
in  this  country  that  the  Prussian  militarists  have 
for  years  been  preparing  for  this  war,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  great  Social-Democratic  party  in 
Germany  were  ignorant  of  that  movement.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  the  people  of  Great  Britain  had 
been  aware  of  the  secret  missions  to  foreign  Courts 


IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  189 

for  the  purpose  of  furthering1  a  policy  for  the 
isolation  of  Germany,  it  is  probable  that  public 
opinion  in  this  country  would  not  have  approved 
such  a  policy.  That  this  diplomatic  policy  was 
being  pursued  behind  the  backs  of  Parliament  and 
the  people  was  well  known  in  the  inner  circles 
of  the  European  Courts.  After  the  mischief  has 
been  done,  these  truths  have  been  permitted  to 
come  to  the  light.  For  instance,  the  Belgian 
Minister  in  London  (Count  de  Lalaing),  in  a  dis- 
patch to  his  Government  dated  May  24,  1907, 
said  :  "  It  is  plain  that  official  England  is  quietly 
pursuing  a  policy  opposed  to  Germany  and  aimed 
at  her  isolation,  and  that  King  Edward  has  not 
hesitated  to  use  his  personal  influence  in  the  ser- 
vice of  this  scheme." 

Such  a  policy  as  that  was  bound  to  eventuate  in 
war.  If  these  facts  had  been  known  to  Parlia- 
ment five  years  ago  this  war  would  never  have  taken 
place,  for  the  danger  of  the  policy  of  attempting 
to  isolate  Germany  would  have  been  realized,  and 
before  matters  had  developed  to  the  point  of  hos- 
tilities the  public  opinion  of  Great  Britain  and 
Germany  would  have  interfered.  Similarly  the 
secret  mission  of  Lord  Haldane  to  Berlin  in  1912 
failed  because  of  its  secrecy.  The  disclosures  made 
by  the  German  Chancellor  and  by  Sir  Edward 
Grey  show  that  the  margin  of  difference  between 
the  proposals  of  the  two  Governments  was  so  small 
that  if  there  had  been  an  earnest  desire  on  both 
sides  to  come  to  an  agreement  the  difference  could 
easily  have  been  bridged.  The  secret  knowledge 
and  the  suspicion  in  the  minds  of  both  parties— the 


DEMOCRACY  AND   PUBLICITY 

knowledge  of  the  German  Chancellor  of  the  secret 
intrigues  which  for  years  had  been  going  on 
between  England,  France,  Russia,  and  Spain  for 
the  isolation  of  Germany,  and  the  knowledge  in 
Sir  Edward  Grey's  mind  of  the  secret  understand- 
ing between  this  country  and  France — made  it 
impossible  for  a  satisfactory  agreement  to  be 
reached.  But  if  the  final  differences  could  have 
been  submitted  to  the  respective  Parliaments,  if 
the  peoples  of  Germany  and  England,  both  anxious 
for  friendly  relations,  could  have  been  consulted,  if 
in  an  atmosphere  of  peace  these  matters  could 
have  been  discussed  with  full  knowledge,  it  is 
as  certain  as  day  follows  night  that  some  basis 
would  have  been  found  for  a  friendly  settle- 
ment. 

But  even  if  that  had  not  happened,  the  advan- 
tage of  publicity  would  have  been  immense.  If 
the  negotiations  had  failed,  plainly  because  Ger- 
many was  determined  to  accept  no  agreement  which 
would  not  give  her  a  free  hand  against  France 
and  Russia,  then  the  public  in  all  European  coun- 
tries would  have  known  the  real  facts.  If  war 
was  seen  to  be  inevitable,  our  Government  would 
have  been  in  a  far  stronger  position.  Because 
they  alone  have  been  in  possession  of  knowledge 
which  they  believed  pointed  to  the  possibility  of 
war,  they  have  been  hampered  in  making  the 
preparations  for  war.  If  it  were  the  fact  that 
the  German  fleet  was  being  built  to  challenge 
the  position  of  Great  Britain  and  to  attack  this 
country,  then  the  great  increases  in  the  Navy  Vote 
of  Great  Britain  during  the  last  eight  years  might 


IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  191 

have  been  justified.  But  because  of  the  secrecy 
of  foreign  policies  the  Government  were  unable 
to  justify  their  policy  by  a  full  statement  of  the 
facts.  Secret  diplomacy  makes  the  conditions  for 
war  ;  but  where  the  control  of  finance  is  in  the 
hands  of  Parliament,  it  prevents  the  Government 
from  making  the  adequate  preparations  to  sup- 
port the  commitments  of  that  secret  policy. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  foreign  affairs 
which  renders  the  public  discussion  of  them  un- 
intelligible to  the  ordinary  mind.  If  that  were  so, 
why  have  the  various  Governments  of  the  belli- 
gerent States  taken  such  trouble  to  provide  the 
public  with  the  notes  and  dispatches  bearing  oln 
the  war?  The  different  Governments  have  based 
their  case  on  the  evidence  of  these  books.  They 
have  appealed  to  the  public  to  act  as  the  jury 
on  this  evidence.  The  people,  it  appears,  are  con- 
sidered fit  to  form  correct  judgments  after  the 
mischief  is  done,  but  unfit  to  be  consulted  before. 
The  matters  with  which  foreign  politics  is  con- 
cerned are  no  more  difficult  or  subtle  than  many 
questions  of  domestic  policy.  The  Unionist  Party 
were  at  one  time  anxious  that  the  electors  of  this 
country  should  vote  directly  on  the  question  of 
Tariff  Reform.  That  is  one  of  the  most  abstruse 
and  difficult  social,  economic,  and  political  ques- 
tions, and  the  people  who  were  to  be  asked  by 
their  votes  to  decide  this  issue  are  the  same  people 
who  are  not  considered  sufficiently  enlightened  to 
decide  whether  British  foreign  policy  shall  be  used 
for,  say,  assisting  to  divide  Europe  into  two  rival 
and  hostile  combinations,  or  for  establishing  a 


192         DEMOCRACY  AND   PUBLICITY 

concert  of  nations  acknowledging  a  code  of  inter- 
national law. 

A  great  advantage  which  would  come  from 
publicity  in  foreign  affairs  would  be  in  the  parlia- 
mentary and  public  discussion  which  would  arise. 
This  public  discussion  would  have  a  three  times 
blessed  result.  It  would  have  a  restraining  influ- 
ence upon  ministers  and  diplomats  in  the  pre- 
liminary negotiations.  The  aloofness  of  foreign 
policy  from  parliamentary  control  and  public  dis- 
cussion must  have  the  effect  of  making  foreign 
!ministers  and  diplomatists  rather  contemptuous  of 
Parliament  and  people.  It  must  subject  them  to  a 
constant  temptation  to  do  things  which  they  would 
not  do  if  they  knew  that  their  action  would  come! 
before  a  committee  of  Parliament  and  be  subjected 
to  criticism.  It  would  put  an  end  to  the  secret 
intrigues  of  financiers  and  armament  interests  to 
direct  foreign  policy.  The  second  great  benefit 
which  publicity  would  confer  would  be  that  the 
discussion  of  questions  of  foreign  relations  would 
help  to  clear  away  mutual  misunderstandings 
between  nations,  which  are  so  often  due  to  the 
suspicion  which  secrecy  always  encourages.  This 
discussion  would  bring  the  peoples  of  the  different 
nations  more  closely  together,  because  no  such 
discussion  of  international  relations  could  take 
place  without  making  plain  the  common  interests 
of  the  workers.  The  third  great  benefit  which 
would  result  would  be  the  gradual  education  of 
the  democracy  in  foreign  politics,  the  expansion 
of  their  horizon,  and  the  development  of  the  inter- 
national spirit  and  outlook.  tWhen  the  democracies 


IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  193 

have  the  international  spirit  there  will  be  no  more 
wars. 

We  come  now  to  the  practical  proposals  for 
giving  effect  to  our  demand  for  publicity  in  foreign 
affairs.  Reform  will  have  to  be  carried  out  in  three 
quarters.  Some  form  of  parliamentary  control 
over  foreign  affairs  will  have  to  be  established  ; 
the  staffs  of  the  Foreign  Office  and  the  Diplomatic 
Corps  will  have  to  be  changed,  and  the  relation  of 
the  Foreign  Secretary  to  Parliament  will  have  to 
be  altered.  The  control  of  Parliament  over  foreign 
policy  is  now  merely  nominal.  It  is  true  that  an 
opportunity  is  provided  by  means  of  questions  in 
the  House  of  Commons  for  obtaining  information. 
But  the  Foreign  Secretary  withholds  information 
altogether,  or  gives  just  as  much  as  he  thinks 
desirable.  Members  of  Parliament  are  restricted 
hi  their  access  to  sources  of  information  about 
foreign  affairs,  owing  to  the  secrecy  with  which 
diplomacy  is  conducted.  In  the  matter  of  ques- 
tions dealing  with  home  affairs  the  Member  of 
Parliament  is  able,  as  a  rule,  to  find  out  the  actual 
facts  for  himself,  and  he  then  is  in  a  position,  by 
means  of  questions  and  supplementary  questions, 
to  meet  the  minister  on  fairly  equal  terms.  But  it 
is  not  so  in  regard  to  foreign  affairs.  A  reference 
to  the  incident  of  the  Japanese  demands  upon 
China  in  the  spring  of  }  9 1 5  will  illustrate  the 
difficulty  of  a  Member  of  Parliament  eliciting  the 
facts  by  means  of  questions  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  That  was  a  matter  in  which  the  honour 
and  the  interests  of  Great  Britain  were  seriously 
involved.  But  questions  to  the  Foreign  Secretary 

13 


194         DEMOCRACY   AND   PUBLICITY 

failed  to  elicit  any  information  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  Japanese  demands,  or  the  progress  of  the 
negotiations,  or  of  the  attitude  which  our  Foreign 
Office  had  taken  up.  The  Foreign  Secretary 
pleaded  that  a  copy  of  the  Japanese  Note  to  China 
had  been  given  to  him  by  Japan  in  confidence,  and 
the  terms  could  not  be  divulged.  What  that  meant 
was  that,  though  Great  Britain  was  by  treaty  bound 
to  maintain  the  integrity  of  China,  Parliament  was 
not  entitled  to  know  anything  about  the  action 
which  our  ally  was  taking  to  destroy  that  in- 
tegrity. 

In  addition  to  the  opportunity  afforded  by  ques- 
tions there  is  usually  one  day  each  session  set 
apart  for  the  discussion  of  foreign  affairs.  It  is 
obviously  impossible  to  adequately  discuss  such  im- 
portant and  varied  subjects  in  one  sitting  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  In  normal  times  the  House 
of  Commons  is  so  fully  occupied  with  domestic 
legislation  that  it  might  be  difficult  to  afford  time 
for  frequent  discussions  on  foreign  affairs.  But 
there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  allotting  at  least  as 
much  time  for  that  purpose  as  is  given  to  the 
discussion  of  the  Navy  and  Army  Votes.  It  would 
be  useless,  however,  to  give  more  time  unless 
Parliament  were  kept  constantly  more  closely  in 
touch  with  what  was  being  done  by  the  Foreign 
Office.  To  provide  that  closer  acquaintance  with 
foreign  policy,  the  establishment  of  a  Committee 
of  Foreign  Affairs  is  desirable.  This  committee 
should  be  composed  of  members  drawn  from  all 
the  political  parties  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
In  time,  service  on  this  committee  would  provide 


IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  195 

a  fair  proportion  of  members  who  had  acquired 
knowledge  of  this  department,  and  who  would  be 
able  to  discuss  these  questions  intelligently  in  the 
public  debates  in  the  House.  Such  a  committee 
would  not  assume  the  responsibility  which  is  now 
vested  in  the  Foreign  Secretary  and  the  Cabinet. 
Its  function  would  be  to  learn  the  facts  and  to 
act  in  an  advisory  capacity. 

But  no  extension  of  parliamentary  control  over 
foreign  affairs  would  be  effective  if  the  character  of 
the  Diplomatic  Service  and  the  constitution  of  the 
Foreign  Office  remained  unchanged.  The  staffs 
of  both  the  Diplomatic  Corps  and  the  Foreign 
Office  are  recruited  in  the  most  undemocratic  way, 
and  the  personnel  are  quite  out  of  touch  with 
present-day  movements.  The  nomination  for  the 
examination  for  a  Foreign  Office  clerkship  and  for 
a  post  in  the  Diplomatic  Service  rests  with  the 
Foreign  Secretary.  The  candidates  are  drawn 
wholly  from  one  social  rank.  Candidates  for  the 
Diplomatic  Service  must  give  an  assurance  that 
they  are  provided  with  a  private  income  of  not 
less  than  £400  a  year.  If  appointed,  they  must 
serve  abroad  for  two  years  without  salary.  This 
condition  ensures  that  the  men  shall  belong  to 
the  well-to-do  class,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
utmost  care  is  taken  that  only  young  men  of  high 
social  rank  are  selected.  Of  twenty  recent  appoint- 
ments one-half  were  peers  or  the  sons  of  peers,  and 
the  remainder  belonged  to  a  social  class  scarcely 
less  exalted.  The  Royal  Commission  on  the  Diplo- 
matic Service  which  reported  in  1914  said  :  "The 
effect  of  this  condition  [the  required  minimum 


196         DEMOCRACY   AND   PUBLICITY 

private  income  of  £400  a  year]  is  to  limit  candida- 
ture to  a  narrow  circle  of  society.  We  have  been 
furnished  by  the  Civil  Service  Commissioners  with 
the  educational  antecedents  of  the  successful  com- 
petitors for  attache'ships  in  the  years  1908-13 
inclusive.  No  fewer  than  twenty-five  out  of  thirty- 
seven  came  from  Eton,  while  all  but  a  very  small 
fraction  had  been  educated  at  one  or  other  of 
the  expensive  public  schools.  In  only  one  case 
was  any  University  other  than  Oxford  or 
Cambridge  represented.  No  further  evidence  is 
required  to  show  the  limiting  effect  of  the  present 
regulations  upon  the  class  of  candidates  from  which 
the  Diplomatic  Corps  is  recruited." 

The  two  necessary  qualifications  for  the  Diplo- 
matic Service  are  social  rank  and  the  qualities 
which  will  make  a  diplomat  acceptable  in  the 
society  of  the  Court  to  which  he  is  accredited. 
Men  of  this  sort  can  have  no  knowledge  of  the 
great  democratic  movements  which  are  rising  in 
all  countries,  and  which  are  forcing1  on  the  attention 
of  all  Governments  great  social  and  economic 
questions.  These  men  have  been  reared  in  a  world 
apart  from  the  actualities  of  the  present  day.  They 
know  nothing  of  the  democratic  or  international 
spirit.  It  was  quite  consistent  to  have  such  people 
to  conduct  foreign  affairs  when  Parliament  was 
controlled  by  the  same  class.  But  to-day  the 
Diplomatic  Service  and  Foreign  Office  are  ana- 
chronisms. The  reform  needed  is  to  throw  open 
these  Services  to  young  men  of  all  classes  qualified 
by  education  and  character.  Just  as  it  is  possible 
for  the  son  of  a  poor  man  by  the  system  of  open 


IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  197 

competition,  with  the  help  of  public  scholarships,  to 
obtain  an  important  post  in  the  home  Civil  Service, 
so  it  must  be  made  possible  for  such  to  enter  the 
Diplomatic  Service  and  the  Foreign  Office,  and  to 
bring  the  democratic  outlook  and  sympathy  into 
the  conduct  of  international  affairs. 

One  oft-repeated  objection  to  publicity  in  foreign 
affairs  requires  a  word,  of  comment.  It  is  said 
that  this  reform  is  impossible  unless  all  nations 
in  diplomatic  association  simultaneously  adopt  the 
system,  or  that  if  this  country  alone  did  so  it 
would  be  placed  at  a  disadvantage  in  diplomacy. 
This  is  a  reform  which  one  country  can  adopt 
without  waiting  for  a  general  agreement  among 
the  nations  to  do  so.  There  can  be  no  such  secrecy 
as  we  desire  to  abolish  unless  all  the  parties 
conspire  to  preserve  silence.  The  adoption  of 
publicity  in  foreign  affairs  by  England  would  bring 
to  the  light  the  dealings  of  other  nations.  The 
abolition  of  secrecy  would  no  doubt  place  those  at 
a  disadvantage  who  desire  to  work  in  the  dark 
because  they  fear  the  light  and  public  opinion. 
If  the  aims  of  a  nation's  diplomacy  are  honest 
there  is  no  reason  why  it  should'  desire  its  move- 
ments to  be  covered  by  darkness. 

But  this  objection  appears  to  arise  from  a  mis- 
understanding of  what  is  meant  by  publicity  in 
foreign  affairs.  There  is  no  proposal  that  all 
the  negotiations  between  the  nations  shall  be  con- 
ducted openly,  and  that  every  note  and  dispatch 
shall  be  made  known  to  the  world.  That  is 
obviously  neither  possible  nor  desirable.  What  is 
meant  is  that  there  shall  be  established  some  form 


198         DEMOCRACY   AND   PUBLICITY 

of  parliamentary  control  over  foreign  policy,  that 
its  general  lines  shall  be  directed  by  Parliament, 
and  that  no  minister  or  Cabinet  clique  shall  have 
the  power  to  commit  the  word  of  honour  of  this 
country  to  any  policy  which  has  not  been  approved 
by  Parliament,  and  which  is  not  in  accord  with 
the  general  principles  approved  by  the  nation  at 
a  general  election,  and  that  the  country  shall 
know  clearly  how  it  stands  in  relation  to  other 
nations  and  what  its  obligations  are.  In  other 
words,  the  abolition  of  secrecy  in  foreign  affairs 
means  that  Parliament,  which  has  now  nominally 
the  responsibility  for  foreign  policy  and  war,  shall 
be  able  to  decide  such  matters  with  full  know- 
ledge, instead  of,  as  in  the  past,  being  called  upon 
to  make  a  hurried  decision  on  a  momentous 
question,  like  the  voting"  of  supplies  for  war,  in 
ignorance  of  the  causes  which  have  led  to  such 
a  situation,  or  when  the  country  has  been  irre- 
vocably committed  to  war  by  the  pledged  word 
of  its  ministers. 

The  powers  vested  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  under  the  American  Constitution,  for  the 
control  of  foreign  policy  afford  an  example  of 
a  method  of  securing  some  measure  of  publicity 
and  democratic  control.  The  sanction  of  the 
Senate  is  required  for  the  ratification  of  a  Treaty, 
and  as  Lord  Bryce  writes  in  his  "  American  Com- 
monwealth "  (vol.  i.  p.  109)  :  "Yet  different  as 
the  circumstances  of  England  are,  the  day  may 
come  when  in  England  the  question  of  limiting 
the  present  wide  discretion  of  the  executive  in 
foreign  affairs  will  have  to  be  dealt  with.  The 


IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS  199 

example  of  the  American  Senate  may  then  be 
cited,  but  there  is  this  important  difference  between 
the  two  countries,  that  in  England  Parliament 
may  dismiss  ministers  who  have  concluded  a  treaty 
which  it  disapproves,  whereas  in  the  United  States 
a  President,  not  being  similarly  removable  by  Con- 
gress, would  be  exempt  from  any  control  were 
the  Senate  not  associated  with  him  in  the  making 
of  a  treaty." 

The  qualification  which  Lord  Bryce  adds  to  his 
statement  that  the  example  of  America  may  be 
cited  in  support  of  a  change  in  the  method  of 
conducting  foreign  relations  by  England  has  very 
little  force  in  the  face  of  recent  experience.  Par- 
liament may  dismiss  ministers  who  have  been 
carrying  out  a  foreign  policy  it  disapproves,  but 
the  mischief  cannot  be  undone,  and  the  fact 
that  Parliament  is  only  permitted  to  know  what 
ministers  choose  to  tell  makes  it  difficult  or  im- 
possible for  it  to  arrive  at  a  firm  conclusion, 
and  its  uncertainty  constitutes  the  security  of  the 
ministers.  The  example  of  the  American  method 
disposes  of  most  of  the  theoretic  objections  to 
more  publicity  in  foreign  affairs,  such  as  that 
foreign  Powers  will  refuse  to  negotiate  with  a 
country  except  through  ministers  who  have  plenary 
powers,  and  that  the  country  which  has  to  submit 
draft  treaties  to  a  parliamentary  body  will  be 
at  a  disadvantage  in  negotiation.  The  American 
method  would  not  be  applicable  to  this  country 
in  its  precise  form.  Such  a  Second  Chamber 
as  we  have  in  England,  or  such  as  we  are  likely 
to  have,  would  not  be  a  suitable  body  to  exercise 


200      DEMOCRACY   IN   FOREIGN   AFFAIRS 

control  over  foreign  affairs.  A  Joint  Committee 
of  the  two  Chambers  to  consult  and  advise  the 
minister,,  without  relieving  him  of  responsibility, 
would  probably  be  a  morq  useful  body.  To  this 
body  consideration  of  treaties  might  be  referred, 
as  they  are  to  the  American  Senate,  but  the  final 
confirmation  of  the  treaty  should  rest  with 
Parliament.  The  demand  for  publicity  in  foreign 
affairs  is  one  phase  of  the  age-long  struggle  for 
democratic  liberty.  It  is  a  demand  for  the 
extension  to  the  sphere  of  internationalism  of  the 
principle  of  popular  government,  which,  whatever 
its  weaknesses  may  be,  is  manifestly  the  only  form 
of  government  possible  with  the  advance  of  educa- 
tion and  modern  economic  and  social  developments. 
The  destinies  of  nations  have  been  trusted  to  kings, 
nobles,  and  plutocrats,  and  they  have  each  and 
all  failed.  We  must  now  trust  the  people. 


THE 

DEMOCRATIC 

PRINCIPLE 

AND 

INTERNATIONAL 

RELATIONS 


THE    DEMOCRATIC    PRINCIPLE   AND 
INTERNATIONAL   RELATIONS 

By  VERNON  LEE 

IT  is  not  from  any  great  belief  in  what  is  called 
"  constructive  policy  "  that  I  want  our  reader  to 
think  out  some  of  the  principles  which  should  con- 
trol the  international  relations  of  democratic 
peoples.  We  do  not  know  enough  about  the 
materials  and  the  forces  which  will  make  up  the 
Future  for  our  ground  plans  and  elevations  to 
have  much  importance,  except  in  so  far  as  our 
wishes  and  efforts  are  themselves  part  of  the  stuff 
that  Future  is  made  of.  But  in  some  measure,  at 
least,  we  know  the  Past,  and  even  that  prolonga- 
tion of  the  Past  called'  the  Present  ;  and  our 
attitude  to  these,  our  desire  to  seek  and  avoid, 
are  themselves  one  of  the  unknown  and  incal- 
culable Future's  materials.  What  might  we  wish 
if  we  stood  in  the  Future,  felt  as  the  Future,  in 
short,  were  part  of  it?  That  is  a  useless  ques- 
tion. But  being  ourselves  part  of  the  Future's 
seed,  it  is  not  unimportant  what  we  think  about 
our  own  Present,  and  especially  our  own  Past. 

This    Present    tends,    or    we    wish    it    to    tend, 
towards   a  more   and  more  democratic   character. 


204        THE   DEMOCRATIC   PRINCIPLE 

.Whatever  may  have  been  the  line  of  least  resist- 
ance towards  the  greater  good  for  the  greater 
number  in  ages  past,  that  of  our  own  day  is 
evidently  the  democratic  one.  We  have  come  to 
realize  that  in  our  more  evolved  societies  such 
increase  of  present  prosperity  as  will  not  ham'per, 
but  further  the  increase  thereof  in  the  future,  is, 
or  tends  at  least  to  be,  more  and  more  along 
the  lines  of  individuals  and  collectivities  being 
responsible  for  their  own  welfare,  instead  of  being, 
as  in  the  days  of  Divine  Right  and  Church 
Authority,  subjected  to  the  responsibility  of  others. 
To  believe  in  democracy  means  to  believe  that 
however  great  the  drawbacks  of  freedom  to  think 
and  choose,  however  many  the  delusions  attendant 
thereon,  yet  such  freedom  is  educative,  and  its 
very  failures  and  pitfalls  make  those  failures  and 
pitfalls  less  frequent  ;  whereas  even  the  most 
successful  regimes  of  authority  place  the  people 
who  benefit  thereby  at  the  mercy  of  accidents 
themselves  have  not  been  educated  to  control.  This 
being  the  case,  we  may,  I  think,  start  from  the 
premiss  that  in  asking  ourselves,  What  are  the 
principles  by  which  the  relations  of  Nations  and 
States  are  best  guided?  we  may  ask,  What  are 
the  principles  of  international  relations  which  are 
most  consonant  with  the  general  principles  of 
democracy? 

Foremost  among  these  principles  of  democracy 
is  hostility  towards  artificial  privilege  and 
monopoly.  Our  aversion  to  them  is  summed  up 
under  a  sense  of  justice.  We  are  offended,  and 
more  and  more  offended  as  we  grow  more  ethically 


AND   INTERNATIONAL   RELATIONS     205 

sensitive,  'by  the  sight  of  all  avoidable  inequality 
of  chances.  But  besides  this  instinctive,  and  one 
might  almost  say  this  aesthetic1,  sense  of  fair  play, 
there  is  beginning  to  accumulate  in  many  of  us 
a  residue  of  experience  telling  us  that  artificial 
privileges  and  monopolies  create  confusion  and 
deadlock  ;  bring  about  all  manner  of  wasteful 
deviation  and  violent  readjustment  ;  and  jeopardize 
the  power  of  human  affairs  to  right  themselves 
by  mankind's  instinctive  shifting  towards  satis- 
faction and  away  from  its  reverse.  The  belief 
in  freedom  of  thought,  and  the  belief  in  freedom 
of  trade,  are  not  merely  reasoned-out  propositions 
which  we  can  defend  by  argument  ;  they  are  also, 
to  a  considerable  degree,  accumulated  residues  of 
experience,  habits  of  preference  and  action  due 
to  repeated,  uncounted,  and  unnoticed  experiences 
of  analogous  kind.  We  moderns  believe  in 
freedom  in  great  measure  intuitively,  because  we 
have  adjusted  ourselves  to  larger  and  larger  doses 
thereof  ;  freedom,  like  justice,  has  become,  apart 
from  all  analytic  justification,  something  towards 
which  we  turn  by  what  might  be  called  our  intel- 
lectual and  emotional  vital  exchanges,  as  plants 
turn  through  their  chemical  and  mechanical 
functions  towards  light  and  moisture. 

Considering  therefore  democracy,  not  as  a  con- 
dition of  affairs  already  existing,  still  less  one 
having  already  existed,  .among  men,  but  as  a 
principle  deducible  from  certain  tendencies  realiz- 
ing themselves  partially  at  various  times,  and  more 
and  more  dominant  in  our  own,  we  have  to  ask 
in  what  manner  such  democratic  tendencies  are 


206       THE    DEMOCRATIC   PRINCIPLE 

affecting,  and  likely  to  affect,  the  relations  of  a 
Nation  to  other  Nations,  in  other  words,  in  what 
way  democratic  ideals  make  for  Peace. 

The  democratic  principle,  a  principle  de- 
duced from  increasing  practice  and  increas- 
ing that  practice  by  its  regulative  application 
to  it,  may  be  roughly  defined  as  that  of  consent 
as  against  compulsion  ;  agreement  (with  its 
correlate  disagreement)  as  against  obligatory 
authority  ;  and  self -direction  as  against  direction 
by  others  ;  equality  of  judicial  and  civic  rights 
being  among  the  necessary  guarantees  of  this 
threefold  first  principle. 

In  other  words,  we  may  say  that  the  democratic 
attitude  is  one  of  greater  and  greater  respect  for 
freedom  of  choice,  a  greater  and  greater  belief 
hi  the  tendency  of  variety  to  produce  by  mutual 
selection  and  adjustment  an  ever  richer  and  more 
supple  social  harmony.  Let  us  see  the  application 
of  this  principle  to  politics.  Within  the  bounds 
of  one  nation  it  goes  against  every  kind  of 
artificial  privilege  and  monopoly,  since  these 
diminish  freedom  of  choice  and  substitute  com- 
pulsion for  choice.  In  foreign  relations  it  is 
evident  that  our  democratic  preference  for  consent 
as  against  compulsion  diminishes  and  abolishes  all 
supposed  rights  by  conquest.  Once  recognize  that 
only  the  consent  of  a  people  can  decide  their 
nationality  and  government,  and  you  put  an  end 
to  the  possibility  of  countries  or  provinces  being 
kept  against  their  will,  as  Trent  is  being 
kept  by  Austria,  for  reasons  having  no  present 
sanction  in  the  inhabitants'  wishes,  and  still  more 


AND   INTERNATIONAL   RELATIONS     207 

so  of  those  countries  or  provinces  being  transferred, 
except  from  their  free  will,  from  one  nation  or 
re'gime  to  another.  The  imposition  of  a  Russian 
regime  on  Finland,  although  Finland  is  not  a 
Russian  conquest,  is  against  the  democratic 
principle  as  much  as  the  annexation  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine  by  Germany.  The  secession  of  Norway 
from  Sweden  is  perhaps  the  most  hopeful  practical 
recognition  of  this  principle.  In  short,  the 
democratic  principle  of  consent  versus  compulsion, 
ipso  facto,  makes  a  country  or  province  a  portion 
of  whatever  country  itself  prefers. 

To  say,  as  Bismarck  did  to  the  dissident  Alsatian 
deputies,  that  Alsace-Lorraine  had  not  been 
annexed  for  its  own  convenience  and  safety,  but 
for  the  convenience  and  safety  of  Germany,  was 
to  treat  Alsace-Lorraine  in  an  undemocratic  spirit: 
as  a  chattel,  a  material  possession  existing  only 
for  its  possessor  ;  and  it  was  the  way,  of  course, 
to  place  that  possessor  himself  in  the  light  of  a 
mere  material  obstacle  which  those  he  thus  treated 
as  chattels  would  shake  off  whenever  feasible.  On 
the  other  hand,  to  say,  as  I  have  heard  quite 
liberal-minded  French  people  say  of  late,  that 
Alsace-Lorraine  should  be  reunited  to  France 
without  a  plebiscite  or  other  consultation  of  its 
inhabitants'  choice,  because  it  is  stolen  goods  and 
stolen  goods  can  be  taken  back  without  more  ado 
by  their  former  proprietor,  is  to  speak  just  as 
undemocratically  as  Bismarck  spoke.  It  is, 
comically  enough,  to  repeat  verbatim  the  very 
excuse  which  Germany  put  forward  in  1871  for 
that  annexation.  The  very  essence  of  the  demo- 


208       THE   DEMOCRATIC   PRINCIPLE 

cratic  principle  is  to  consider  men  and  women 
as  wills  and  not  as  chattels  ;  and  the  progress 
of  democracy,  as  it  implies  a  constant  diminution 
of  all  possibility  of  exploiting  individual  men  and 
women  against  their  choice,  implies  also  that  in- 
habitants do  not  belong  to  territory  but  territory 
to  inhabitants.  To  transfer  a  province  is  therefore 
as  undemocratic  as  to  sell  a  slave.  Thus,  as 
believers  in  the  democratic  principle,  we  are  bound 
to  give  our  sympathy  to  the  people  of  the  province 
of  Trent  when  they  declare  their  wish  to  be  united 
to  the  kingdom  of  Italy.  But  we  cannot  respect 
the  plea  of  the  Italian  Government,  or  even  of 
the  Italian  nation,  that  the  annexation  of  Trent 
is  requisite  for  the  military  safety  of  their  country 
or  even  for  that  equally  self-regarding  collective 
advantage  which  is  called  the  satisfaction  of  their 
ideal  aspirations.  Neither  is  there  much  to  be 
said,  from  the  democratic  point  of  view,  in  favour 
of  the  motives  for  which  we  British  have  held 
Ireland  in  a  past  which  has  not  quite  come  to 
an  end,  and  shall  continue  to  hold  sundry  other 
places  in  the  probable  near  future.  But  since 
hypocrisy  is  a  tribute  to  the  virtue  (and  one  might 
add,  to  the  wisdom,  the  self-command,  and  clear- 
sightedness) which  the  hypocrite  has  not  got,  so 
also  the  progress  of  democratic  morality  and  policy 
is  shown  by  the  more  and  more  frequent  assump- 
tion either  that  a  conquered  country  has  called  in 
its  conqueror  (this  was  a  frequent  fiction  hi 
Napoleon's  time  and  also  of  the  Holy  Alliance 
which  conquered  him),  or  that  a  country  so 
annexed  is  "  protected "  for  its  own  good,  is  a 


AND   INTERNATIONAL  RELATIONS     209 

ward  of  its  master,  and  will,  once  grown  out  of 
childhood,  understand  and  bless  the  restrictions 
and  the  chastisements  which  may  have  chafed  its 
foolish  immature  will. 

I  think  it  is  clear  from  all  the  foregoing  that 
the  democratic  principle  absolutely  rejects  the 
notion  of  a  military  victory  having  "  fruits." 
Such  fruits  of  victory  it  calls  by  their  real  name 
of  loot.  No  matter  what  sacrifices  the  victorious 
nation  may  have  made  or  what  risks  it  may  have 
run,  the  democratic  principle  denies  the  right 
(which  would  sanction  highway  robbery  and 
burglary)  that  the  sacrifices  and  risks  of  Tom 
can  be  compensated  by  imposing  sacrifices  on 
Harry. 

If  human  beings  are  to  be  treated  as  human 
beings  with  wills  like  our  own  (and  this,  like  all 
morality,  is  wisdom,  and  like  all  wisdom,  is 
morality),  and  not,  as  was  avowedly  the  case 
throughout  Antiquity  and  the  Middle  Ages,  as 
chattels,  slaves,  or  creatures  you  could  keep  or  kill 
at  convenience,  then  wars  are  absurd,  useless,  ille- 
gitimate, unless  undertaken  either  in  self-defence 
(including  self -liberation)  or  in  defence  of  some 
weaker  party.  And  indeed  the  theoretic  accept- 
ance of  this  principle  is  shown  in  the  present 
war,  which  each  of  the  several  belligerent  Govern- 
ments proclaims,  and  each  of  the  belligerent 
peoples  sincerely  accepts,  as  a  war  either  of  self- 
defence  (Austria  defending*  herself  against  the 
vicarious  encroachments  of  Russia  in  the  Balkans, 
Germany  against  the  threat  of  Russia  and  Russia's 
allies,  France  defending  herself  against  Germany) 


210        THE   DEMOCRATIC   PRINCIPLE 

or  of  defence  of  some  smaller  State,  as  Russia  de- 
fending Serbia,  and  England,  Belgium.  That  they 
can  all  be  right  in  their  assertions  and  beliefs  is 
impossible,  and  may  lead  some  sceptics  to  guess 
that  they  may  all  be  mistaken  in  various  or  equal 
degrees.  But  the  universal  certainty  of  each  bel- 
ligerent about  being  a  peaceful  victim  or  chivalrous 
champion  and  his  opponent  an  aggressive  criminal, 
shows  that  though  we  are  very  far  from  acting 
upon  democratic  principles,  as  we  are  very  far 
from  practising  Christianity,  yet  we  have  all  of 
us  explicitly  or  implicitly  accepted  those  demo- 
cratic principles  as  the  only  ones  consonant  with 
a  good  opinion  of  ourselves  and  a  respectful 
attitude  on  the  part  of  our  neighbours. 

In  discussing  these  matters  it  is  necessary  to  bear 
in  mind  that,  as  I  set  out  with  saying,  we  are 
at  present  dealing  with  democracy,  not  as  any. 
existing  set  of  institutions  but  rather  as  a 
TENDENCY  ;  and  a  tendency  which  is  the 
only  one  in  political  and  social  relations  at  all 
likely  to  increase  and  become  more  universal  and 
organized,  despite  all  obstacles  and  set-backs.  For 
the  very  essence  of  democracy  being  the  admission 
of  greater  and  greater  numbers  to  self-government, 
and  consequently  the  better  and  better  equipment 
(by  education,  institutions,  and  also  by  habit)  for 
self-government,  it  is  evident  that  methods  of  con- 
ciliation and  co-operation  must  be  perpetually  on 
the  increase,  and  methods  of  compulsion  and  one- 
sided exploitation  on  the  decline. 

This  democratic  tendency  towards  adjustments 
more  and  more  favourable  to  mutual  advantage 


AND   INTERNATIONAL   RELATIONS     211 

brings  withi  it  the  greater  and  greater  equivalence 
of  what,  looked  at  from  two  opposite  sides,  we  are 
accustomed  to  oppose  to  one  another  under  the 
names  of  Expediency  and  Justice.  For  in  a  regime 
of  increasing  self-government  and  increasing 
equality  of  chances  and  of  the  training  these  bring 
with  them,  it  becomes  more  and  more  expedient 
for  one  individual  or  group  to  behave  towards 
other  individuals  or  groups  in  such  a  manner  that 
these  will  feel  that  they  are  justly  treated — i.e. 
treated  with  such  reciprocity  that  they  could  obtain 
greater  individual  or  group  advantage  only  by 
unjust  treatment  of  other  individuals  or  groups, 
that  is  to  say  by  methods  which,  given  a  regime  of 
increasing  equality,  would  jeopardize  the  safety 
of  the  aggressors  and  become,  therefore,  inex- 
pedient to  themselves. 

In  fact,  democratic  progress  may  be  defined  as 
that  which  gives  to  the  moral  precept  "  Do  unto 
others  as  you  would  be  done  to  "  a  constantly 
increasing  sanction  of  expediency,  and  thereby  an 
automatic  application. 

That  such  development  must  be  slow  and  ex- 
posed to  frequent  set-backs  (like  that  of  this 
war)  is  merely  another  way  of  saying]  that  in  the 
present  and  future  we  have  to  pay  the  debts,  and 
struggle  with  the  difficulties,  left  by  the  Past,  both 
in  the  way  of  habits  of  mind  and  of  institutions. 
But  although  such  progressive  application  of  the 
democratic  principle  is  slow  and  arduous  (but  con- 
stantly less  slow  and  less  arduous  through  the  effect 
of  its  inherent  tendency  to  conciliation  and  co- 
operative adjustment),  yet  such  progressive  applica- 


212        THE   DEMOCRATIC   PRINCIPLE 

tion  of  the  democratic  principle  is  not  in  the  least 
chimerical ;  since,  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  based  less 
and  less  upon  self-sacrifice  and  more  and  more 
upon  the  self -regarding  wisdom  of  consulting  the 
wishes  of  others  to  whom  self-government  and 
equality  give  the  power  of  impeding  the  accomplish- 
ment of  one's  own. 

Such  higher  expediency  is,  indeed,  but  an  out- 
come of  the  practice  of  barter  which  is  implicit 
in  all  democratic  conceptions,  that  is  to  say,  of 
voluntary  giving  what  either  party  wants  less  for 
what  either  party  wants  more  ;  as  opposed  to 
extortion  or  rapine,  by  which  one  party  obtains 
what  it  wants,  but  at  the  expense  of  the  ill  will 
of  the  other  and  a  consequent  loss  to  itself  due 
to  the  necessity  for  coercion  of  the  unwilling  or 
vindictive  loser. 

Perhaps  what  I  have  called  the  Democratic  Prin- 
ciple (which  we  are  now  considering  because  it 
is  opposed  to  the  militaristic  principle  and  is  a 
main  factor  of  Peace) — perhaps  what  I  have  called 
the  Democratic  Principle  is  no  other  than  the  prin- 
ciple of  progress  in  the  political  and  social  sphere. 
Or,  rather,  perhaps  we  might  say  that  what  justifies 
democratic  tendencies  in  our  eyes  is  the  belief  that, 
hi  our  times  at  least,  they  make  for  an  increasing 
betterment  of  human  conditions.  And  mark  !  not 
merely  a  betterment  of  the  present  at  the  expense 
of  the  future,  or  a  betterment  of  the  future  at  the 
expense  of  the  present  (both  of  those  are  alter- 
nately promised  us  by  militarism  and  all  kinds  of 
tyranny),  but  a  ratio  between  the  two,  by  which, 
neither  being  unduly  sacrificed  to  the  other,  the 


AND   INTERNATIONAL   RELATIONS    213 

betterment  of  the  future  is,  on  the  contrary,  one 
of  the  results  of  a  betterment  of  the  present. 
Such  a  ratio  between  proximate  and  ultimate 
advantage  implies  economy  of  resources.  A  great 
deal  of  the  world's  progress  in  the  Past  has  auto- 
matically compassed  itself  by  the  survival  of 
especially  gifted  and  resistant  minorities,  but  at 
the  cost  of  destroying,  not  only  the  present  welfare 
(and  often  the  bare  existence  !)  of  less  gifted 
majorities,  but  depriving  the  world  of  whatever 
could  have  been  got  by  the  co-operation  of  those 
majorities  for  whatever  they  were  worth.  Indeed, 
progress  such,  as  we  see  it  in  the  Past  may  be 
compared  to  the  Past's  imperfect  methods  of  ex- 
tracting the  precious  metals,  by  which  a  certain 
amount  of  them  was  of  course  secured  in  easily 
accessible  grains  or  nuggets,  but  with  the  waste 
of  enormous  quantities  of  ore  which  required  finer 
methods  for  its  utilization.  This  is  perhaps  the 
reason  why  the  history  of  Antiquity — and  how  much 
more  the  unrecorded  history  of  primeval  mankind 
as  we  guess  it  to  have  been  ! — strikes  us  as  a 
series  of  wreckages,  civilization  after  civilization 
rising  out  of  a  process  of  devastation  and  isolation, 
to  be  itself  overwhelmed  (layer  on  layer  of  burned 
towns  and  broken  potsherds  as  excavations  are 
showing  us  !)  by  the  barbarism  it  had  repressed 
or  excluded  or  ignored  ;  wreckage  out  of  which 
only  a  minimum  of  human  acquisitions  was  saved 
and  handed  on  by  the  wreckers.  Those  ancient 
civilizations,  submerged  one  after  another  with  such 
colossal  waste  of  acquisitions  and  possibilities,  were, 
we  should  bear  in  mind,  carried  on  mainly  on  the 


214        THE   DEMOCRATIC   PRINCIPLE 

principle  of  conquest,  compulsion,  and  ruthless  ex- 
ploitation of  the  adversary  ;  the  vanquished  being 
either  exterminated,  driven  into  worse  territories, 
or  made  to  toil  for  the  victor  either  in  actual 
slavery  or  by  means  of  tribute  depriving  them  of 
all  but  the  barest  subsistence,  methods  which 
can  be  studied  in  more  recent  times  in  our  dealings 
with  backward  races.  By  these  methods,  as  has 
been  pointed  out  by  various  social  philosophers, 
especially  by  J.  M.  Robertson,  the  potential  pro- 
ductivity of  the  world  was  enormously  diminished  ; 
the  victors  often  became,  like  the  Romans,  econo- 
mically parasitic  on  the  vanquished,  who,  on  the 
other  hand,  became  less  and  less  productive  as 
a  result  of  their  tyrannical  exploitation. 

Thus,  adopting  the  phraseology  of  a  recent 
Austrian  biological  sociologist,  Rudolf  Goldscheid, 
in  his  noble  and  suggestive  "  Menschen-Okbnomie 
und  Hoherentwicklung,"  one  might  say  that  the 
waste  of  Human  Capital  under  the  slave-holding 
and  tribute-levying  regimes  of  the  Antique  World 
is  parallel  to  the  waste,  the  destruction  of  natural 
resources,  by  the  primitive  husbandry  which  takes 
everything1  out  of  the  soil  and  puts  nothing  in, 
which  cuts  down  forests  and  never  replants  them, 
and  thus  reduces  countries,  as  so  many  of  the 
Mediterranean  and  Western  Asiatic  countries  have 
really  been  reduced,  to  barren  rock  and  malarious 
seaboard. 

The  manufacturing  and  trading  communities  of 
the  Middle  Ages  defrauded  civilization  to  only  a 
lesser  degree  by  envious  legislation,  which  trans- 
ferred the  markets  and  industries  of  the  vanquished 


AND   INTERNATIONAL   RELATIONS    215 

to  the  victors,  and  surrounded,  for  instance, 
medieval  Siena  and  Florence  with  what  had  once 
been  prosperous  townships,  and  now  became 
decaying,  sometimes  fever- stricken  villages  like 
Tiutinnano  d'Arbia  and  Sovana,  or  even  mere 
barely  identifiable  sites,  as  in  the  case  of  Semifonti, 
which  the  Florentines  razed  to  the  ground,  scatter- 
ing or  absorbing  its  inhabitants.  It  was  on  the 
same  plan  of  capturing"  alien  trade  that  England 
ruined  Ireland  in  much  more  recent  times  ;  it  is 
in  the  same  spirit,  and  with  the  same  amount 
of  wisdom,  that  some  of  our  contemporaries,  even 
of  those  believing  themselves  to  be  democrats  and 
reformers,  are  urging  England  to  ruin,  so  far 
as  is  possible,  whatever  may  remain  of  German  in- 
dustry and  commerce  at  the  end  of  this  war. 

I  have  given  these  instances  lest  the  existence  of 
certain  forms  of  popular  government  should  mislead 
us  into  imagining  that  the  Democratic  Principle 
of  choice  versus  compulsion  has  been  really  recog- 
nized, let  alone  acted  on,  in  the  historic  past. 
Democracy,  in  the  most  important  sense  we  can 
attach  to  the  word,  is  not  a  set  of  institutions. 
It  is,  I  should  again  like  to  repeat,  a  tendency 
towards  a  particular  mode  of  judging  and  acting, 
a  tendency  much  more  recent  than  we  usually  think, 
though  of  even  vaster  and  more  rapid  growth. 
But  the  recognition  of  this  comparative  newness 
of  such  a  democratic  tendency,  while  obliging  us 
to  patience  with  its  present  imperfect  realization, 
encourages  us  to  wish  and  to  strive  for,  as  well 
as  to  expect,  its  less  and  less  imperfect  realization 
in  times  to  come.  And  we  thus  obtain,  not  only 


216        THE   DEMOCRATIC  .PRINCIPLE 

an  aim  for  the  future  but,  what  I  venture  to  con- 
sider as  more  •  important  still,  a  criterion  for  the 
present  ;  since,  in  proportion  as  mankind  slips 
out  of  its  old  notions  of  submission  and  dogma,  it 
becomes  more  obedient  to  the  notion  of  consistency 
and  responsibility.  The  Democratic  Principle  that 
men  and  women  are  not  things  but  wills,  and 
the  democratic  re'gime  of  reciprocal  concession  and 
mutual  advantage,  will  therefore  tend  to  realiza- 
tion no  longer  merely  by  such  aggregate  and 
automatic  action  as  we  sum  up  under  the  name  of 
economic  and  historic  forces,  but  also,  and  more 
and  more,  by  the  conscious  and  deliberate  choice 
of  every  individual  taken  singly.  Self-determina- 
tion is  one  of  the  aspects  of  the  Democratic 
Principle.  And  self-determination  will  itself  imply 
that  the  Democratic  Principle  must  supersede  the 
principle — if  you  can  call  it  a  principle  ! — of  which 
we  see  the  crassest  and  most  antiquated  embodi- 
ment in  the  present  attempt  of  each  and  every 
nation  to  establish  security  by  violence  and  to 
vindicate  liberty  by  brute  compulsion  ;  in  other 
words,  to  obtain  the  economic  and  moral  bless- 
ings of  peace  by  means  of  the  economic  ruin  and 
the  moral  devastation  of  war. 


UJJWIN  BROTHERS,  LIMITED.  THE  GRESHAM  PRESS,  WOKING    AND  LONDON 


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